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THE  LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES 


OF 


GEORGE    AUGUSTUS    SALA 


'■■(5 


THE 


LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES 


OF 


George  Augustus  Sala 


WRITTEN    BY    HIMSELF 


flu  ^wo  IDolumes 


VOL.    II. 


'  ''     ^-'Z  ''.^      i''.  -^V  .%'.   a^«  '      i*a 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1895 


8  6  b  ^  4 


Copyright,  1S95,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


t  C  4      c 

t     c 

4.   L    4.       C 


TROW   DIRECTORY 

PAINTING   AND   BOOKBINOINQ   COMPANY 

NEW    YORK 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

PAr.E 

Some  Newspaper  Matters i 

Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  Poet  and  Journalist—"  Placing  "  Living 
Poets — Mr.  Alfred  Austin — "  The  Seven  Sons  of  Mammon  "' 
— Why  we  Drink  Less  than  in  1862. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
Mainly  About  a  Wedding,  , 


The  Prince  of  Wales's  Wedding— The  Rev.  J.  M.  C.  Bellew 
— An  Adventure  with  the  Police — Dilificulties  of  Journalists — 
Lord  Chamberlains  and  their  Courtesy — Mr.  W.  Frith's  Levee 
Costume  in  1863 — In  St.  George's  Chapel — James  Grant  and 
his  Dinner — His  Antiquarian  Blunders — A  "Caw"  in  All  the 
Year  Round. 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

Across  the  Atlantic, 17 

Miss  Braddon  and  "  LadyAudley's  Secret " — Mr.  Train,  the 
Tramway  Projector — The  War  between  North  and  South — 
In  New  York  —  Joined  by  Mrs.  Sala — Montreal — General 
Earle — Quebec — d'Arcy  Magee — Hawley  Smart  and  his  Uncle, 
the  Racing  Baronet — Indian  Lorette — Sir  James  Macdonald 
— Sir  George  Brown — Captain  Jenkins,  Commodore  of  the 
Cunard  Fleet — Samuel  Ward  and  W.  H.  Hurlburt — A  Story 
of  Miss  Florence  Nightingale — Joseph  Jefferson — The  Misses 
Bateman  and  their  Father — In  Paris  once  more — Marseilles — 
Algiers — An  Interview  with  Napoleon — The  Flavour  of  Os- 
trich Egg — At  Hamburg  again — At  Cassel — In  Holland — To 
Madrid  in  a  Hurry — Mr.  and  Mrs.  Antonio  Gallenga — The 
Escorial — The  Fun  of  the  Carnival — Travelling  in  Spain — 
Cordova  :  the  Cathedral — Seville. 


VI  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

PAGE 

r>i:LLA — HORRIDA    BELLA 6l 

Over  the  Mont  Cenis  Pass— Venice — A  Battle  between  a 
Crab  and  a  Rat — At  Trieste — Over  the  Semmering  to  Vienna 
—  The  Kaiser  —  Turner's  Venice  —  Padua  —  Milan  —  H.  M. 
Hyndman— "  Viva  Verdi ! " — The  Salas  of  Milan. 


CHAPTER  XXXVn. 
With  Garibaldi  in  the  Tyrol 70 

A  Badly  Provisioned  Army — An  Interview  with  Garibaldi 
— His  Career — What  he  did  with  his  Uniform — His  Lady  Dev- 
otees —  His  Ingenuousness  —  Daniel  Manin  —  Legend  of  a 
Special  Correspondent — I  recognise  my  Overcoat — Edward 
Dicey — Lord  Ronald  Gower — Garibaldi  at  Stafford  House — 
Compulsory  Peace. 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 
The  Liberation  of  Venice, 83 

Mr.  Frederick  Hardman— The  First  War  Correspondent — 
Peter  Finnerty  and  the  Walcheren  Expedition — M.  Plantulli 
— At  Padua — Marshal  Haynau  and  the  Caffe  Florian — Shake- 
speare's Familiarity  with  Italian  Cities — Ferrara  :  Haunted 
by  the  Ghost  of  Lucrezia  Borgia — Donizetti's  Opera — I  Rejoin 
my  Wife — An  Incident  at  Mestre — A  Reminiscence  of  Niag- 
ara— Venice  on  the  Eve  of  its  Liberation — Good-nature  of  the 
Venetians — The  Fenice  Re-opened — Popular  Enthusiasm — 
Enter  the  King. 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 
Rome  and  Naples -99 

Perugia — Rome  in  1866  and  in  1894 — Papal  Warriors — The 
Colosseum — Cardinals  in  State — The  Holy  Father  on  the  Pin- 
cian  Hill — Papal  Money — Guide's  Beatrice  Cenci — Pompeii — 
From  Naples  to  Marseilles. 


CONTENTS  vil 


CHAPTER    XL. 

PAGE 

The  International  Exhibition  of  '67,      .        .        .        .106 

Paris — Napoleon's  Interest  in  the  Exhibition — The  Imperial 
Commissioners — "Old  King  Cole"  and  his  Panorama  of 
English  Literature  and  Journalism — The  late  Lord  Houghton 
— The    Commissariat — The  "  Test  House  "  and  its   French 

Nickname — Baron  B and  his   Variegated    Career — The 

Distribution    of    Prizes — Napoleon    III.    and    Ferdinand   de 
Lesseps  as  Prize  Winners — Vicissitudes  of  Fortune. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 
Sultan  and  Tsar 114 

Mr.  Felix  Whitehurst — Arrival  of  Abdul  Aziz  at  Toulon — 
In  the  midst  of  Flunkeys — Attempt  on  the  Tsar  Alexander 
II. — Trial  of  Berezowski — Maitre  Arago's  Defence — News 
of  Berezowski  in  1 886 — Frightening  a  Sentinel — A  Galaxy  of 
Royalty — The  First  German  Emperor. 

CHAPTER  XLII. 
The  Clerkenwell  Explosion  and  the  "Claimant,"     .  122 

An  Execution  at  Maidstone — Lord  Mayor  Allen  and  his 
Chariot — The  Queen's  State  Carriage — The  Clerkenwell  Ex- 
plosion— The  Boat  Race  of  1 868 — Buckstone  and  Toole  and 
the  Old  Cognac — The  Tichborne  Claimant  and  his  Friends. 

CHAPTER    XLIII. 
Behind  the  Scenes  Again, 132 

A  Feat  of  Memory' — St.  Martin's  Hall :  The  Queen's  Thea- 
tre— Mr.  and  Mrs.  Labouchere — An  Invitation  to  Write  a 
Play — Watts  Phillips:  a  Neglected  Dramatist — Edward 
Sothern — At  Home  again — The  Strand  Music  Hall — Mr. 
Lionel  Lawson — Mr.  John  Hollingshead —  IVai  Tyler  at  the 
Gaiety — Miss  Nellie  Farren,  Mr.  J.  L.  Toole,  Miss  Rose 
Coghlan. 


viii  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

PAGE 

The  Trial  of  Pierre  Bonaparte 140 

Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte's  Stormy  Career — The  Slaying  of 
Victor  Noir— Maitre  Floquet — Incidents  of  the  Trial— M. 
Henri  Rochefort— M.  Paul  de  Cassagnac— An  Acquittal— A 
Solatium  to  the  Victim's  Kindred. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

The  War  of  1S70 152 

"  Kit  "  Pemberton— Military  Linguists— Correspondents  to 
keep  in  the  Rear— Paris  before  the  War— An  admirer  of  la 
grosse  GiT/a/^r/V— Crowded  Churches— A  Thoroughly  Popu- 
lar War— At  Metz— A  Musical  Colonel— Nicholas  Woods- 
Henry  and  Athol  Mayhew— Augustus  O'Shea— Mr.  Simpson 
— Sydney  Hall—"  Azamat  Batouk  "—O'Shea  in  Trouble — An 
Insubordinate  Aide-de-Camp  —  Mr.  Simpson's  Tent  —  A 
Bullying  Commandant — Meeting  the  Commandant  again— 
Metz  Demoralised. 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 
Exit  the  Second  Empire, 168 

Panic  in  Paris — Spy  Fever — I  am  Arrested — Mobbed  by 
Prisoners  —  At  the  Prefecture — A  Remand — A  Friendly 
Gaoler — Lord  Lyon's  Intervention — A  Fit  of  Hysterics — My 
Narrow  Escape  from  being  Butchered — Tales  of  the  Prussian 
Uhlan. 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 
Through  the  Wall  of  Rome, 180 

The  Lyons  of  1870 — In  Straits  at  Geneva — A  Friendly 
Chemist — To  Rome — Cadorna  takes  the  City — The  British 
and  Foreign  Bible  Society  to  the  Fore — Thomas  Cook — My 
First  Acquaintance  with  him — Frugal  Box  Book-keepers — 
Cornelius  O'Dowd's  Attacks  on  Mr.  Cook — Departure  of 
the  Papal  Garrison — A  Mass  Meeting  in  the  Colosseum — The 
Plebiscituvi — A  Review  in  the  Campo  di  Marte — Might  and 
Right. 


CONTENTS  IX 


CHAPTER    XLVIII. 

PACE 

Going  to  Law,  and  to  Berlin, 196 

A  Libel — My  "  Extravagance  " — A  C}"^^^''^''^  about  my 
Nose — Mr.  Friswell,  my  Assailant — Heavy  Damages — How 
the  Money  went — At  the  Opening  of  the  German  Parliament 
— A  Tobacco  and  Beer  Symposium — Among  the  French  Pris- 
oners at  Spandau. 

CHAPTER  XLIX. 
In  St.  Paul's  and  at  Chislehurst, 205 

The  Prince  of  Wales's  Illness — The  Thanksgiving  Service 
—The  Tichborne  Claimant  again — His  Coolness — Funeral  of 
Napoleon  III. — Illness — A  Resourceful  Doctor — Walking 
over  One's  own  Feet. 

CHAPTER    L. 

Collapse  of  the  Claimant 216 

Dr.  Kenealy's  Career — The  End  of  Sir  Alexander  Cock- 
burn's  Summing  Up — The  Verdict — A  Parting  Glance  from 
the  Claimant. 

CHAPTER  LI. 

To  Spain  Once  More:  Alfonso  XII 222 

My  Acquaintance  with  Three  Kings  of  Spain — A  Call 
from  Don  Juan  de  Borbon — A  Parlour  Maid's  Comment  on 
Royalty — The  Duke  of  Aosta — Madrid  in  Winter — Colonel 
"  Howsomever  "  and  his  Stories — Antonio  Gallenga,  Then 
and  Now — Archibald  Forbes — Roger  Eykyn — King  Alfonso's 
Entry — A  Journey  to  Zaragoza — Left  Behind — Washing  with 
Candles. 

CHAPTER  LIL 
Down  South, 238 

Barcelona — A  Train  attacked  by  Carlists — Levying  Tribute 
— Another  Attack  :  the  Tables  Turned — Cordova  and  Seville 
— Don  Arturo  of  Bobadilla  introduces  himself — Gibraltar — A 
Charge  of  Insulting  the  Sons  of  the  Rock — The  King  of  the 
Monkeys — Algeria. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  LIII. 

PAGE 

Another  Expedition  to  Russia, 245 

Death  of  Shirley  Brooks — His  Editorship  of  Punch — Lord 
Beaconsfield  as  a  Patron  of  Men  of  Letters — The  Difificulty 
of  Saving  on  ^2,000  a  Year— Demolition  of  Temple  Bar: 
Daz'fy  Telegraph  Victory— The  Griffin — To  Russia  again— 
The  Flower  of  Russian  Society — Denounced  as  a  Turkish 
Spy — An  Ill-tempered  Courier  and  his  Peculiarities — The 
Monotony  of  Russian  Life— The  American  Minister— The 
Russian  Climate— Adelina  Patti  and  her  Chasseur— Odts^a. 

CHAPTER  LIV. 
In  the  City  of  the  Sultan 268 

The  Black  Sea — The  Bosphorus — Campbell  Clarke — Har- 
ems on  the  Tramway — Plundering  St.  Sophia — Mosaics  and 
Jujubes :  a  Widow  Lady's  Penetration — Dancing  Dervishes 
— The  Dogs  of  Stamboul :  a  Story  of  them — Alexander  Mc- 
Gahan — Eugene  Schuyler  and  his  Smoking  Party — Frank 
Scudamore — Hobart  Pasha — Baker  Pasha — Colonel  Burnaby 
—  British  Diplomatists  at  Constantinople — Mr.  Consul  Reade 
— The  Son  of  Napoleon  the  Great's  Gaoler. 

CHAPTER  LV. 

The  Turkish  Constitution,         ......  282 

M.  Bar^re — Mr.  Hormuzd  Rassam — General  Ignatieff  :  a 
Reminiscence  of  his  Father — Sir  William  White — Christmas 
at  Constantinople — Proclaiming  the  Turkish  Constitution — 
Moslem  Toleration — Athens — Story  of  a  Deaf  Judge — Syra — 
At  Monte  Carlo  :  more  Ill-luck — Captain  Cashless — Madame 
La  Baronne  Unetelle  and  her  Indignation. 

CHAPTER  LVL 

In  Mecklenburgh  Square .  299 

Breaking  into  my  own  House  :  Story  of  a  Caretaker  and  a 
Haunch  of  Venison — In  "  Society  "  again — Mr.  Disraeli  and 
Miss  Braddon — -Presented  to  the  Prince  of  Wales — The 
Grosvenor  Gallery — "  Paris  herself  Again  "—A  Dinner  to 
Archibald  Forbes. 


CONTENTS  XI 


CHAPTER  LVII. 

PAGE 

F"ROM  THE  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  ....  308 

At  Richmond,  U.S.A. — The  Carnival  at  New  Orleans — 
A  Cock-fight — Chicago — Over  the  "  Rockies  " — San  Fran- 
cisco— The  Palace  Hotel— The  Streets — Chinese  Festivities 
— The  San  Francisco  News  Letter  and  Mr.  Frederick  Mar- 
riott— Edward  Sothern. 

CHAPTER  LVIII. 
A  Murdered  Tsar, 316 

Another  Russian  Mission — Irish  Stew  in  St.  Petersburg — 
The  Ill-conditioned  Courier  again — The  Earl  of  Dufferin  and 
Lord  Frederick  Hamilton — A  Recognition  at  the  Beefsteak 
Club — An  Inopportune  Attack  of  Lumbago — Lying-in-State 
of  Alexander  II. — A  Memorial  Service. 

•     CHAPTER  LIX. 
Coronation  of  Alexander  III., 325 

Permission  to  wear  Court  Dress — An  Offer  of  Free  Quarters 
declined — Entrance  of  Alexander  III.  into  Moscow — A  Brill- 
iant Scene — The  Coronation — The  Tsar  at  Dinner — A  Run 
for  the  Telegraph  Office — A  bit  of  Journalistic  Smartness. 

CHAPTER  LX. 
To  THE  Antipodes, 333 

A  Lecturing  Tour — Mr.  Chauncey  Depew — An  Interview 
with  President  Arthur  at  Washington — General  Butler — 
Failure  and  Success — At  the  Royal  Palace,  Honolulu — King 
David  Laamea  Kalakaua  —  Auckland  —  Mr.  Dalley  —  Mel- 
bourne— "  The  Land  of  the  Golden  Fleece  "— Wagga-Wagga 
— A  Snub  at  Mudgee — New  Zealand — Tasmania — A  Christ- 
mas Dinner  of  Boiled  Mutton  and  Turnips — My  Wife's  Death. 

CHAPTER  LXI. 
Home  Again— Last  Words 349 

Calcutta — Smitten  with  Fever — The  Queen's  Jubilee — An 
Urgent  Note  from  Mr.  Labouchere — Introduction  to  Pigott 
the  Forger — His  Confession — My  Second  Marriage. 


THE    LIFE    AND    ADVENTURES 

OF 

GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

CHAPTER   XXXIII 

SOME   NEWSPAPER   MATTERS 

It  was  shortly  after  the  death  of  the  Prince  Consort 
that  I  became  aware  of  the  presence  of  a  new  leading- 
article  writer  in  the  columns  of  the  Daily  TelegrapJi. 
Members  of  the  staff  of  great  daily  papers  do  not,  as  a 
rule,  see  much  of  one  another.  I  had  my  own  room  at 
the  office  ;  and  although  I  occasionally  met  Horace  St. 
John,  I  never  conferred  with  him  on  journalistic  mat- 
ters. With  respect  to  the  articles  I  was  to  write  I  saw 
only  my  editor,  Mr.  J.  M.  Levy,  or  his  son  Edward.  I 
was  most  forcibly  impressed  by  the  style  of  the  new 
leader-writer  ;  replete  as  it  was  with  refined  scholar- 
ship, with  eloquent  diction,  and  with  an  Oriental  exu- 
berance of  epithets.  Some  of  the  leaders — giving  ex- 
pression to  the  universal  feeling  of  sympathy  for,  and 
condolence  with.  Her  Majesty  in  her  bitter  bereave- 
ment— struck  me  as  being  about  the  most  pathetic  ut- 
terances in  poetic  prose  that  I  had  ever  read.  But  it 
was  the  Eastern  aroma  of  these  articles  which  most  at- 
tracted my  attention  and  excited  my  admiration.  It 
occurred  to  me  one  day  to  ask  Edward  Lawson  who 
the  gentleman   might  be  who  wrote   so  sumptuously 


LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


about  the  Nilotic  butterfly  and  the  sacred  rivers  and 
temples  of  burning  Ind  ?  He  told  me  that  the  writer 
was  a  gentleman  newly  arrived  from  India,  and  that 
gentleman  is  now  my  very  good  friend,  Sir  Edwin 
Arnold,  K.C.I. E.,  C.S.I. 

Shortly  after  this  discovery  I  was  dining  with  the 
late  E.  M.  Dallas,  of  the  Times,  and  his  wife,  who  had 
been  the  gifted  tragedienne,  Miss  Isabella  Glyn,  at 
their  residence  in  Hanover  Square.  Among  the  guests 
were  Sir  Edwin  Landseer  and  James  Hannay  ;  and  in 
the  course  of  the  evening  the  conversation  turned  on  a 
leader  in  the  Daily  Telegraph,  in  which — alluding  to 
some  exceptionally  scandalous  divorce  case,  which  was 
then  the  talk  of  the  town — the  writer  observed  that 
comments  on  such  a  case  would  best  be  made,  not  in 
the  English  language,  but  in  Latin.  James  Hannay, 
who  was  really  a  verv  competent  Ciceronian  and 
Horatian  scholar,  had  a  craze  that  no  journalist  save 
himself  was  entitled  to  claim  any  familiarity  with  the 
Latin  tongue  ;  and  observed,  with  a  chuckle,  that  the 
"  dog  " — meaning  the  author  of  the  article  in  question 
— might,  if  he  essayed  to  deal  with  the  speech  of  old 
Rome,  experience  some  difficulties  in  connection  with 
the  subjunctive  mood.  The  article  was  none  of  mine, 
but  I  conjectured,  I  know  not  with  how  much  reason, 
that  it  was  from  the  pen  of  the  gentleman  who  wrote 
so  eloquently  about  the  Nilotic  butterfly  ;  and  I  some- 
what hotly  told  Hannay  that,  to  the  best  of  my  knowl- 
edge and  belief,  the  author  of  the  essay  at  which  he 
was  sneering  was  a  Master  of  Arts  of  Oxford,  the  win- 
ner of  the  Newdigate  prize  for  his  English  poem  on 
the  Feast  of  Belshazzar,  and  who  had  been  subse- 
quently appointed  Principal  of  the  Sanskrit  College  at 
Poona  and  Fellow  of  the  University  of  Bombay  ;  and 
that  in  all  probability  he  had  forgotten  more  Latin  and 
Greek  than  Hannay  ever  knew. 


SOME   NEWSPAPER   MATTERS 


Dallas  and  Landseer  were  highly  amused  by  my 
taking  up  the  cudgels  in  defence  of  a  colleague,  con- 
cerning whose  identity  I  was  not  at  all  certain.  Nor 
have  I  ever  known,  to  this  day,  whether  Sir  Edwin  did 
or  did  not  write  the  impugned  leader.  If  he  did  not  I 
beg  his  pardon.  In  any  case,  I  have  never  ceased  to 
entertain  the  sincerest  appreciation  of  the  genius,  both 
as  a  poet  and  a  prose  writer,  of  Sir  Edwin  Arnold. 
The  dullest,  hardest-headed  of  prosers  myself,  I  love 
the  divine  art  of  poesy  with  passionate  devotion  ;  and 
after  I  am  dead  the  world  will  see,  I  hope,  the  com- 
monplace books  which  I  have  filled  with  extracts 
from  the  greatest  masters  of  poetry  in  ancient  and 
modern  times.  Thus,  as  a  humble  professor  of  prose, 
but  as  one  whom  Providence  has  blessed  with  the 
faculty  of  admiration,  and  who  has  never  been  envious 
of  his  superiors  in  letters,  I  deliberately  place  Edwin 
Arnold,  as  a  poet,  next  after  Algernon  Charles  Swin- 
burne ;  next  to  him  Alfred  Austin  ;  next,  Lewis  Morris, 
and  next  William  Morris.  Concerning  the  poetesses  it 
would  be  invidious  to  say  anything.  The  remainder  of 
the  bards  or  would-be  male  bards  are,  to  my  mind,  only 
so  much  leather  and  prunella. 

Talking  of  Alfred  Austin,  I  smile  when  I  remember 
my  first  meeting  with  that  elegant  littcrateiir.  It  must 
have  been  some  time  in  1862.  Temple  Bar  was  paying 
its  way,  but  was  not  making  a  mint  of  money  ;  and 
Mr.  John  Maxwell,  its  proprietor,  was  not  indisposed 
to  sell  the  copyright  of  the  magazine  for  a  round  sum, 
I  had  finished  my  novel  of  "  The  Seven  Sons  of  Mam- 
mon." Maxwell  had  relinquished  his  rights  of  "  dead- 
lock "  on  the  re-publication  of  the  fiction  for  ^100  ;  and 
Tinsley  Brothers,  of  Catherine  Street,  had  given  me 
£^00  for  five  years'  right  of  issuing  the  romance.  But 
that  sum  was  not  enough  to  purchase  the  T.B.  Ed- 
mund Yates  was  in  the  receipt  of  a  handsome  salary  at 


LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 


the  General  Post  Office ;  but  he  needed  all  his  income, 
and  all  he  could  earn  by  assiduous  literary  labour  be- 
sides, to  keep  up  that  which  he  considered  to  be  proper 
state  and  dignity.  Edmund  liked  luxury,  and  kept  his 
brougham  and  pair,  with  a  groom  and  coachman  in 
buckskin  and  "  pickle-jars,"  to  say  nothing  of  a  sleek 
hack  for  riding  in  Rotten  Row,  long  before  age  and 
infirmity  induced  me  to  hire  a  humble  co2{/>e  irom  a  job- 
master. My  friend  and  sub-editor,  therefore,  suggested 
that  young  Mr.  Alfred  Austin  was  just  the  kind  of  gen- 
tleman to  come  forward  with  a  portion  of  the  necessary 
funds  for  buying  Temple  Bar.  He  was  talented,  he  was 
prosperous,  he  was  energetic.  So  a  little  dinner  party 
was  got  up  at  Yates's  residence,  which  was  then  some- 
where in  St.  John's  Wood.  I  know  it  was  in  that  dis- 
trict, because  he  fell  into  a  mighty  rage  with  me  when 
I  hinted  that  the  morals  of  St.  John's  Wood  were  not, 
in  those  days,  wholly  free  from  reproach.  Some 
months  afterwards,  when  he  moved  into  other  quar- 
ters, he  incidentally  told  me  that  his  next  door 
neighbours  at  St.  John's  Wood  had  been,  on  one  side, 
Mesdemoiselles  Lais,  Phryne,  and  Aspasia ;  and  on 
the  other  side  a  gentleman  deprived  of  his  reason,  and 
who  was  occasionally  wont  to  escape  from  his  keeper, 
and  dance  wild  sarabands  on  the  lawn  in  a  costume 
which  the  Spaniards  call  en  ciierpo,  and  the  Red  Ind- 
ians "  all  face." 

Mr.  Alfred  Austin,  when  we  came  to  talk  business, 
treated  me  in  what  I  considered  to  be  a  rather  dii  haiit 
en  bas  manner.  I  half  thought  that  he  was  of  opinion 
that  I  had  borrowed  my  suit  of  evening  dress  from 
Messrs.  Blackford,  in  Holywell  Street ;  and  then  it  sud- 
denly occurred  to  me  that  I  had  been  reading  a  poem 
of  his  called  "  The  Season,"  in  which  I  was  alluded  to 
as  the  inhabitant  of  a  garret,  "  wrapping  my  rags  around 
me  as  I  wrote."     Considering  that  at  the  time  named 


SOME   NEWSPAPER   MATTERS  5 


I  had  an  income  from  one  source  or  another  of  at  least 
;^40  a  week  ;  that  I  had  been  elected  a  member  of  the 
Reform  Club,  and  was,  after  a  manner,  a  country  squire, 
I  need  scarcely  say  that  the  allusion  to  the  garret  and 
the  rags  was  the  cause  of  much  laughter  in  the  domestic 
circle  at  Upton  Court.  How  little  people  know  about 
one  another,  to  be  sure !  There  was  brilliant,  whole- 
souled  Matthew  Arnold,  who  was  so  very  fond  of  snarl- 
ing and  sneering  at  the  journalists  whom  he  called  the 
"  young  lions  of  the  Daily  TelegrapJiT  Bless  us  and 
save  us !  When  he  was  jibing,  some  of  the  writers 
whom  he  assailed  were  growing  middle-aged  lions  ;  and 
three  of  us  at  least,  who  yet  continue  to  roar  daily  in 
the  columns  of  the  Daily  Telegraph — Edwin  Arnold, 
Francis  Lawley,  and  myself — are  rather  ancient  lions. 
Many  years  afterwards  I  met  Matthew  Arnold  at  the 
house  of  Mr.  George  Russell,  now  Under-Secretary  of 
State  for  India. 

As  regards  the  negotiations  with  Mr.  Alfred  Austin, 
they  had  no  practical  issue.  Him  also  I  did  not  meet 
for  a  very  long  time  ;  but  when  I  did  have  the  pleasure 
of  renewing  my  acquaintance  with  him  I  had  read 
"  The  Human  Tragedy,"  "  The  Golden  Age,"  "  Young's 
Widowhood,"  and  many  other  of  his  enchanting  poems. 
Naturally,  my  mind  reverts  sometimes  to  the  lines 
about  the  garret  and  the  rags  in  the  satire  of  "  The  Sea- 
son," which  contained,  by  the  way,  a  line  which  might 
have  been  signed  by  Pope,  or  Swift,  or  Churchhill.  It 
was  a  description  of  a  fashionable  dinner-party,  and  the 
arrival  of  the  gentlemen  when  they  joined  the  ladies  in 
the  drawing-room  was  thus  tersely  summed  up — 

"  Then  the  half-drunk  lean  over  the  half-dressed." 

Gentlemen  took  their  wine,  and  a  great  deal  of  it,  in 
1862.  Not  all  the  two  and  three  bottle  men  had  passed 
away ;   but   I  attribute  the  pleasing  advent  of  after- 


6  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

dinner  abstinence  from  port,  sherry,  and  claret  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  repast  to  two  causes.  First,  the  in- 
troduction of  the  service  h  la  riisse,  which  absolved 
hosts  from  the  obligation  of  carving,  and  led  to  the  in- 
troduction of  light  and  elegant  dinners,  in  place  of  the 
heavy  feeds  which  required  to  be  washed  down  by 
potent  beverages.  If  you  will  look  at  Richard  Doyle's 
cartoon  of  a  dinner-party  in  the  "  Manners  and  Customs 
of  the  English,"  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  published  in 
1861,  you  will  see  that  the  host  is  carving;  and  more 
than  that,  when  the  whole  of  the  dishes  were  placed  on 
the  table  other  guests  were  expected  to  carve  the  viands 
nearest  to  their  hands.  This  led  to  much  overeating 
on  the  part  of  the  company,  to  much  fatigue  on  the 
part  of  the  carvers,  and  the  subsequent  recruiting  of  ex- 
hausted nature  by  swilling  an  excessive  quantity  of 
wine  before  the  gentlemen  joined  the  ladies.  But  a  far 
more  important  agent  in  abolishing  the  brutal  custom 
of  drinking  wine  after  dinner,  was  that  patronage  of 
smoking,  which  we  owe  to  the  Prince  of  Wales. 


CHAPTER   XXXIV 

MAINLY   ABOUT   A   WEDDING 

Eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-three  was  to  me  a 
very  eventful  year.  I  had  left  Upton  Court  and  taken 
a  house  in  Guildford  Street,  Russell  Square.  Early  in 
March  the  Heir  Apparent  of  the  British  Crown  was 
married  to  the  Princess  Alexandra  of  Denmark.  His 
Royal  Highness  went  down  to  Dover  to  fetch  his  bride 
elect,  and  we  journalists  had  a  hard  time  of  it  when  the 
Royal  pair  entered  the  Metropolis.  We  breakfasted  at 
Guildhall,  where  the  City  authorities  were  very  kind 
to  us,  and  agreed  that  a  couple  of  carriages,  in  which 
eight  of  us  were  bestowed,  should  form  part  of  the  civic 
procession  which  was  to  meet  the  Prince  and  Princess. 
Henry  Rumsey  Forster  was,  of  course,  to  the  fore,  as 
the  representative  of  the  Morning  Post ;  and,  in  the  in- 
terest of  some  other  paper — the  name  of  which  has  es- 
caped me — was  the  Rev.  J.  M.  C.  Bellew,  who  had  been 
one  of  my  contributors  to  Temple  Bar.  A  noticeable 
personage  the  Rev.  J.  M.  C.  Bellew,  father  of  the  extant, 
talented,  and  well-known  actor.  He  had,  I  believe,  for 
a  time,  performed  sacerdotal  functions  at  Calcutta, 
where  his  congregation  was  very  fond  of  him,  and  pre- 
sented him  with  a  life-sized  portrait  of  himself.  Re- 
turning to  England,  he  was  for  a  while  minister  of  a 
church  in  Regent  Street,  near  Verrey's ;  then  he  had 
another  cure  of  souls  somewhere  in  the  Regent's  Park  ; 
and  at  the  time  of  the  marriage  of  the  Prince  he  was 
officiating    at   a   proprietary    chapel    in    Bloomsbury. 


8         LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

Subsequently  he  joined  the  Roman  Catholic  Com- 
munion :  possibly  with  the  idea  of  becoming  a  priest  of 
that  church  ;  but  he  overlooked  the  circumstance  that 
although  the  Church  of  England  recognises  Romanist 
Orders,  the  Church  of  Rome  does  not  reciprocate  that 
theological  courtesy.  Ultimately  Mr.  Bellevv  became 
a  public  lecturer,  taking  Shakespeare  for  his  theme, 
and  illustrating  his  lectures  by  means  of  scenery,  cos- 
tumed groups,  and  choruses.  He  was  a  born  actor ; 
and  had  he  seriously  adopted  the  stage  as  a  profession, 
would  have  attained,  I  should  say,  considerable  repute. 
Supremely  handsome,  of  commanding  presence,  with 
a  dulcet,  yet  sonorous  voice,  and  perfect  enunciation, 
he  had  every  requisite  for  the  making  of  a  tragic  actor. 
He  was,  withal,  an  excellent  fellow,  full  of  mirth  and 
bonJiomic. 

We  duly  entered  our  carriage  on  the  eventful  morn- 
ing, and  proceeded  at  a  snail's  pace  towards  London 
Bridge ;  but  our  progress  was  so  tedious  that  Forster 
and  I  agreed  that  but  for  the  dignity  of  the  thing — as 
the  gentleman  said,  who  was  the  occupant  of  a  sedan 
chair,  of  which  the  bottom  fell  out — we  might  as  well 
have  walked  ;  and,  by  the  time  we  reached  the  end  of 
King  William  Street,  we  bade  farewell  to  dignity  alto- 
gether, and  being  both  provided  with  police  passes, 
made  the  best  of  our  way  across  London  Bridge,  which 
was  splendidly  decorated  for  the  occasion,  and  sped 
towards  the  "  Bricklayers'  Arms  "  goods  station,  where 
the  Prince  and  Princess  were  to  arrive.  Never  did  I 
behold  such  an  astounding  multitude  as  that  which 
crammed  every  foot  of  ground  on  the  line  of  march 
when  Albert  Edward  and  Alexandra  of  Denmark  en- 
tered the  City.  At  the  Mansion  House  the  Royal  and 
the  civic  processions  were  mingled  in  hopeless  con- 
fusion ;  nay,  there  were  even  black  isthmuses  of  loyal 
subjects  between  one  batch  of  carriages  and  another. 


MAINLY   ABOUT   A    WEDDING 


In  vain  did  the  escort  of  Life  Guards  and  strong  bod- 
ies of  City  police  do  their  best  to  keep  at  a  reasonable 
distance  the  thousands  upon  thousands  of  cheering, 
shouting,  hat-waving  people  who  were  pressing  round 
the  Royal  carriage.  They  came  so  close  that  I  saw 
the  Princess  lay  her  hand  caressingly  on  the  shock 
head  of  a  little  dirty  brat,  whom  his  mother,  possibly 
to  save  the  urchin  from  being  suffocated,  was  holding 
up.  Thus  pounding  and  plunging  and  surging  through 
the  thoroughfares  went  the  cortege  from  the  INIansion 
House,  through  Cheapside,  and  Ludgate,  and  Fleet 
Street :  the  mob  roaring  loud  enough  to  blow  down 
the  walls  of  half-a-dozen  Jerichos. 

At  Temple  Bar  a  curious  diversion  took  place. 
There  the  civic  procession  left  the  Royal  party  ;  and  a 
strong  body  of  the  Metropolitan  mounted  police  hav- 
ing seen  the  Royal  carriages  and  the  Life  Guards 
safely  through  the  Bar,  proceeded  to  charge,  with  the 
intention,  so  it  seemed  to  me,  of  trampling  under  the 
hoofs  of  their  horses  the  long-suffering  group  of  jour- 
nalists, of  whom  I  was  one.  1  remember  that  one  of 
our  number  was  Mr.  John  Leighton,  well-known  as  a 
capital  caricaturist  under  the  pseudonym  of  "  Luke 
Limner,"  and  the  author  of  an  amusing  little  book  on 
the  caprices  of  fashion,  called  "  Madre  Natura."  I 
don't  know  whether  Mr.  Leighton  had  anything  to  do 
with  any  newspaper  of  the  period,  or  how  he  came  to 
be  one  of  the  journalistic  crew  ;  he  had,  apparently, 
been  hunting  that  morning,  for  he  was  got  up  in  a 
grass-green  coatee,  and  cords  and  gaiters,  and  flour- 
ished his  hunting  crop  ;  and  this  odd  guise  seemed  so 
to  exasperate  one  mounted  constable  that  he  went 
specially  for  Mr.  Leighton,  and  essayed  to  goad  him 
violently  back  into  Fleet  Street.  Fortunately,  I  had  at 
the  time  the  questionable  advantage  of  being  "known 
to  the    police  ; "  and   a    friendly  inspector   linked    his 


lO        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

powerful  arm  in  mine  and  piloted  me  through  this 
slightly  too  active  squadron  of  cavalier  constables. 

We  followed  the  procession  on  foot  as  far  as  Pall 
Mall,  but  not  without  one  final  mishap,  which  occurred 
close  to  the  equestrian  statue  of  George  III.  Up 
came  riding  a  very  consequential  Assistant  Commis- 
sioner of  Police — one  Captain  Labalmondiere — who, 
in  a  high-handed  and  authoritative  manner,  ordered 
us  off,  saying  that  His  Royal  Highness  did  not  like  to 
be  followed  about  by  newspaper  men.  We  told  this 
glorified  "  Peeler "  that  we  had  all  permits  to  pass 
between  the  lines  ;  and  I  added  that  my  own  pass  had 
been  given  me  by  Mr.  Commissioner  Mayne,  one  of 
the  Chief  Commissioners,  to  whom  I  was  personally 
known.  Then  the  lofty  "  Bobby  "  proceeded  to  slang 
me,  and  I  slanged  him  in  return  with  interest ;  and  it 
is  possible  he  might  have  given  me  into  custody  for 
high  treason  or  arson,  for  trying  to  pass  bad  half- 
crowns  ;  only,  fortunately  for  me,  the  friendly  in- 
spector was  again  to  the  fore,  and  whispered  some- 
thing to  the  captain  in  blue  and  silver ;  whereupon  he 
gave  me  a  farewell  scowl,  and  rode  away  in  a  huff.  I 
"  took  it  out  of  him,"  as  the  saying  goes,  in  the  next 
number  of  Temple  Bar.  Farewell,  Labalmondiere ! 
Life,  a  philosopher  has  somewhere  observed,  is  not  all 
beer  and  skittles.  Similarly,  I  may  observe  that  the 
path  of  that  very  useful  servant  of  the  public,  the  jour- 
nalist, is  not  altogether  a  highway  of  roses.  He  is 
continuall}^  liable,  while  in  pursuit  of  his  vocation,  to 
be  snubbed  or  insulted  by  Jacks  in  office,  dressed  in  a 
little  brief  authority. 

I  have  mentioned  this  little  episode  because  1  wish 
just  to  give  a  glimpse  of  the  difificulties  which  journal- 
ists have  to  encounter  in  the  execution  of  the  arduous 
and  responsible  duties  of  their  profession  ;  but  it  is 
only  fair  to  add  that  in  most  instances  the  constituted 


MAINLY   ABOUT  A   WEDDING  II 


authorities  show  the  greatest  kindness  and  courtesy  to 
the  representatives  of  the  Press;  this  is  particularly 
the  case  at  the  Guildhall,  where,  on  the  occasion  of 
any  important  civic  function,  ample  accommodation  is 
afforded  for  those  who  have  to  chronicle  the  proceed- 
ings for  the  newspapers.  Perhaps  the  functionary 
who  takes  the  best  care  of  journalists  is  the  Lord 
Chamberlain,  for  the  time  being.  1  am  unable  to  re- 
member the  name  of  all  the  Chamberlains  to  whom  I 
have  had  the  occasion  to  offer  my  thanks  for  politeness 
and  generally  obliging  conduct  shown  to  my  frater- 
nity at  Royal  weddings  and  funerals  ;  but  the  last  Lord 
Chamberlain  to  whom  journalistic  thanks  were  due 
was  Lord  Carrington,  who  looked  after  our  comfort 
and  convenience  most  sedulously  at  the  marriage  of 
the  Duke  of  York  and  the  Princess  May.  And,  good- 
ness knows  !  Lord  Carrington  had  enough  to  do  on 
that  memorable  day  in  his  official  capacity. 

In  the  second  week  in  March  I  went  down  to  Wind- 
sor by  the  last  train  from  Paddington,  to  attend  on 
the  morrow  the  marriage  of  the  heir  to  the  Crown  and 
the  "  Sea  Kings'  Daughter  from  over  the  Sea."  My 
travelling  companion  was  W.  H.  Russell,  who  had 
been  commissioned  by  Messrs.  Day  and  Haghe  to 
write  the  letter-press  for  an  edition  dc  luxe,  describing 
the  Royal  wedding,  to  be  sumptuously  illustrated  by 
means  of  chromo-lithography.  Shortly  after  ten  the 
next  morning  we  were  admitted  at  the  south  door  of 
the  Chapel,  and  ascended  the  somewhat  rickety  stairs 
to  the  organ-loft.  I  don't  think  that  W.  H.  Russell 
was  in  the  organ-loft,  or  that  he  wrote  the  narrative  of 
the  wedding  in  the  Times.  I  think  he  was  away  from 
us,  near  the  altar,  in  Court  dress  ;  as  was  also  Mr.  W. 
P.  Frith,  R.A.,  who  was  to  paint  a  large  picture  of  the 
wedding. 

Mark  the  difference  that  had  taken  place  in  levee 


12  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


dress  since  March,  1863.  The  painter  of  the  most 
graphic  scenes  of  English  social  life  which  we  have 
had  since  the  days  of  Hogarth  was  in  shorts,  silk 
stockings,  a  snuff-coloured  coat,  with  cut-steel  buttons, 
a  brocaded  waistcoat,  a  black  silk  bag  without  a  wig 
to  it,  and  3.  Jabot  with  ruffles.  It  is  still  permissible  to 
wear  that  preposterous  costume  ;  but  the  vast  majority 
of  gentlemen  who  periodically  wait  upon  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  at  St.  James's  Palace,  if  they  do  not  chance 
to  be  officers  in  the  army  or  navy,  or  deputy-lieuten- 
ants, wear  either  a  very  handsome  and  becoming  suit 
of  black  velvet,  with  black  silk  stockings ;  or  a  sort  of 
uniform  coat,  with  a  little  gold  lace  at  the  collar  and 
cuffs,  a  gold  stripe  down  the  seams  of  the  trousers, 
cocked  hat,  and  dress  sword.  There  were  just  a  dozen 
journalists  in  the  organ  loft,  and  among  them  was  a 
gentleman  who,  possibly,  was  somewhat  inexperienced 
in  the  art  of  special  correspondence,  and  had  been 
summoned  in  a  hurry  by  his  editor  from  the  reporters' 
gallery  in  the  House  of  Commons.  It  is  a  droll  fact 
that  this  gentleman  at  one  stage  of  the  proceedings 
fell  to  stenographing  the  Order  of  the  Solemnisation 
of  Matrimony,  and  was  quite  grateful,  but  not  at  all 
abashed,  when  a  colleague  hinted  to  him  that  the  Mar- 
riage Service  would  be  found,  in  extenso,  in  a  volume 
entitled  the  Common  Prayer  Book. 

Of  another  occupant  of  the  gallery  I  have  a  pleasant 
recollection.  This  was  a  highly  respectable  journalist, 
the  late  Mr.  James  Grant,  editor  of  the  Morning  Ad- 
vertiser. He  had  been  a  long  time  in  the  reporters' 
gallery  in  Parliament,  and  had  earned  considerable  lit- 
erary repute  by  a  book  entitled,  "  Random  Recollec- 
tions of  the  Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons."  Mr. 
James  Grant  was,  however,  something  more  than  an 
excellent  reporter  and  a  capable  editor.  He  was  a 
theolos-ian  of  extreme  Calvinistic  views ;  and  was  the 


MAINLY   ABOUT  A   WEDDING  '    I3 

author  of  many  devotional  works  published  anony- 
mously, among  which  was  one  entitled,  "  Heaven  our 
Home."  He  inveighed  very  bitterly  while  we  were 
waiting  for  the  bridal  procession,  against  the  sinful 
conduct  of  the  Corporation  of  London  on  the  day  of 
the  entry  of  the  Prince  and  Princess  into  the  metropo- 
lis, in  permitting  Mr.  Eugene  Rimmel,  the  perfumer,  of 
the  Strand,  to  erect  his  bronze  incense-burning  trophies 
on  London  Bridge.  A  sad  and  gloomy  day  would  it  be 
for  England  if  incense  was  to  become  one  of  the  insti- 
tutions of  this  Protestant  land.  "  There  has  been  too 
much  of  this  sort  of  thing  lately,"  he  remarked  ;  "  a 
stop  must  be  put  to  it,  the  public  pulse  must  be  felt; 
the  public  voice  must  be  heard."  He  was  only  ap- 
peased when  I  pointed  out  to  him  that  Her  Grace  the 
Duchess  of  Inverness  (Lady  Cecilia  Underwood,  the 
second  wife  of  the  Duke  of  Sussex),  with  a  tartan  man- 
tle thrown  over  her  form,  had  just  been  conducted  to 
her  seat  in  the  choir.  His  Scottish  patriotism  was 
aroused  ;  his  ire  was  appeased,  and  the  incense  griev- 
ance was  temporarily  dismissed. 

Dear  old  "  Jemmy  Grant  ! "  He  was  of  very  hum- 
ble origin,  and  was  originally,  I  think,  a  baker  in  some 
small  Scottish  burgh  ;  but  his  tastes  were  literary,  and 
an  article  which  he  had  written  in  connection  with  his 
native  town  being  accepted  by  the  editor  of  Black- 
zvood,  or  some  other  influential  magazine.  Jemmy  was 
led  to  try  his  fortune  in  the  great  metropolis,  where 
his  pluck,  his  hard-headedness,  his  intelligence,  his  un- 
swerving truthfulness  and  integrity,  raised  him  to  an 
important  position  in  that  world  of  journalism  of 
which  he  was  to  be  afterwards  the  historian.  There  is 
a  droll  story,  whether  apocryphal  or  not  I  do  not  know, 
about  the  first  magazine  article  of  Jemmy's  writing. 
The  tale  was  to  the  effect  that  when  the  paper  was 
published  the  editor  sent  Jemmy  a  cheque ;   and  he 


14  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

considered  the  amount  of  the  draft  so  splendid,  he  de- 
termined to  regale  three  of  his  cronies  with  a  bottle  of 
port  wine  at  the  village  hostelry.  So  he,  with  the 
miller,  and  the  provision-dealer,  and  the  flesher,  went 
off,  say  to  the  "  Waverley  Arms,"  called  for  a  bottle 
of  the  best  port,  and  speedily  consumed  it.  A  second, 
and  a  third  bottle  followed ;  when  one  of  the  convivial 
party  observed,  that  he  should  like  a  pint  of  "  yill,"  or 
ale,  as  the  port,  although  doubtless  of  first-rate  quality, 
had  made  him  somewhat  thirsty.  The  order  was  given 
to  the  landlord,  who  rushed  into  the  room  in  a  state  of 
great  consternation.  "  What,  gentleman  !  "  he  said  ; 
"ale  after  my  red  port  wine?  It  is  shocking;  such  a 
thing  cannot  be  tolerated."  There  was  a  little  liquid 
left  in  one  of  the  bottles  ;  he  poured  it  into  the  glass 
and  tasted  it,  uttering  at  the  same  time  a  shriek  of 
mingled  wrath  and  amazement.  "  That  gowk  of  a 
waiter,"  he  exclaimed,  "  has  been  giving  3'ou  anchovy 
sauce." 

When  Jemmy  became  editor  of  the  Morning  Ad- 
vertiser, he  was  too  often  the  dupe  and  the  butt  of 
wicked  wags  at  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge. He  really  had  a  taste  for  antiquarian  research  ; 
only,  as  ill-luck  would  have  it,  he  was  altogether  igno- 
rant of  the  classic  tongues ;  and  irreverent  under- 
graduates used  to  send  him  sham  inscriptions  in 
Latin  and  Greek  which  they  declared  to  have  been 
copied  from  ancient  stone  tablets  recently  excavated. 
These  inscriptions,  when  translated  into  English 
were  found  to  be  so  much  silly  or  idle  rubbish ;  and 
it  was  not  until  the  editor  of  the  Advertiser  had  been 
"sold"  at  least  half-a-dozen  times,  that  he  thought 
of  the  expediency  of  consulting  one  of  his  reporters, 
who  was  a  good  classical  scholar,  before  he  inserted 
the  contributions  of  his  young  friends  at  the  Uni- 
versities. 


MAINLY   ABOUT  A   WEDDING  l5 

About  the  wedding  itself,  I  need  say  but  little :  the 
pageant  having  long  since  been  considered  as  an 
historic  one  which  has  passed  into  the  chronicles  of 
the  land.  One  surprise  indeed  was  in  store  for  the 
spectators  ;  and  that  surprise  was  one  most  heartily 
relished  by  them.  Beyond  the  general  impression 
that  the  youthful  bridegroom  would  wear  some  mili- 
tary uniform,  nothing  was  known  of  what  his  costume 
would  be  like,  and  a  murmur  of  satisfaction  rang 
through  the  chapel  when  in  the  bridegroom's  proces- 
sion the  Heir  Apparent  appeared  in  the  scarlet  and 
gold  of  a  general  in  the  ai-my,  but  wearing  also  the 
dark  blue  robes  of  the  Garter  and  the  Collar  of  the 
Most  Noble  Order  on  his  shoulders. 

Only  one  more  lifting  of  the  curtain  of  the  past. 
Directly  over  against  the  organ-loft,  at  the  south- 
eastern extremity  of  the  chapel,  there  was  a  pew  or 
closet  high  up  in  the  wall  by  the  altar — a  dusty,  musty 
nook,  first  built,  I  have  heard,  in  Henry  VH.'s  time, 
but  swept  and  garnished  and  hung  with  tapestry  for 
this  grand  pageant  of  the  joining  of  the  hands  of  two 
happy  and  handsome  young  people.  In  that  closet,  in 
widow's  weeds,  sat  Her  Majesty  the  Queen.  It  was 
eleven  o'clock  at  night  before  I  had  finished  writing 
my  account  of  the  wedding  for  the  Daily  TelegrapJi. 
The  next  day  I  wrote  (or  A//  ^/le  Year  Round  another 
article  on  the  subject,  but  in  a  wholly  different  key, 
suggested  by  Vinny  Bourne's  dainty  little  poem, 
"  The  Jackdaw."  You  know  the  first  verse  of  that 
tenderly  humorous  production — 

There  is  a  bird  tiiat  by  his  note, 
And  by  the  blackness  of  his  coat ; 
You  might  suppose  a  crow, 
A  strict  frequenter  of  the  Church, 
Where  bishop-hke,  he  finds  a  perch, 
And  dormitory  too. 


l6  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

and  the  last — 

He  sees  that  this  great  round-about, 

The  world,  and  all  its  motley  rout. 

Church,  army,  physic,  law. 

Its  customs  and  its  bus'nesses, 

Is  no  concern  at  all  of  his. 

And  say — what  says  he  ? — CAW  ! 

The  philosophic,  bishop-looking  black-coated  bird  was 
sitting  at  the  top  of  the  church  steeple  whence  he  sur- 
veyed the  bustle  and  the  raree  show  beneath  him.  He 
summoned  it  all  up  in  the  monosyllable  "  C-c-caw  ! " 
and  I  thought  that  I  might  as  well  "  Caw  "  in  All  the 
Year  Round. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

ACROSS    THE    ATLANTIC 

Very  early  in  the  'sixties  there  had  come  to  the  front 
a  young  lady  author  whom  I  had  known  from  her  girl- 
hood, and  whose  friendship  I  hope  that  I  still  retain. 
This  was   Miss  Mary   Elizabeth    Braddon,  for   many 
years  past  the  wife  of  Mr.  John  Maxwell.     She  and 
her  mother  were  neighbours  of  ours,  living  in  Guild- 
ford Street,  and  then  in  Mecklenburgh  Square.     One 
of    Miss    Braddon's    earliest    fictions    was    called,    I 
think,  "  The  Black  Band ;  or,  the  Mysteries  of  jNIid- 
night ; "  but  it  was  "  Lady  Audley's  Secret,"  a  novel 
which  Mr.  Maxwell  was  publishing  in  one  of  the  many 
serials  of  which  he  was  proprietor,  that  first  brought 
its  accomplished  author  into  real  celebrity,  and  when 
the   work   appeared    in    three-volume    form,   Messrs. 
Tinsley,  who  published  it,  and  the  writer  herself,  made 
a  very  large  sum  of  money  by  perhaps  one  of  the  most 
powerful  romances  which,  to  my  mind,  has  ever  been 
penned    since    the    appearance    of    Godwin's   "  Caleb 
Williams."     It  is  customary  in  this  pre-eminently  tol- 
erant and  grateful  age,  when  an  author  has  taken  the 
liberty  to   live   beyond    the    period   which    the    critic 
thinks  propitious  to  his  consignment  to  oblivion,  to  de- 
clare or  to  insinuate  that  he  or  she  has  written  himself 
or  herself  out,  and  that  his  or  her  writings  have  become 
utterl}'  and   intolerably    stale,    flat,   and    unprofitable. 
Miss  Braddon  has  been  one  of  the   few  instances  of 
practically  proving  to  the  critics  that  they  lie  in  their 
throats.     No  single  trace  of  decrepitude  or  of  lack  of 

II.— 2 


l8  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

invention  and  dramatic  energy  can  be  attributed,  even 
by  the  most  malevolent,  to  the  very  latest  of  her  nov- 
els. 

I  began   to  write  a  novel   myself  in  the  summer  of 
1863  ;  it  was  called,  "  Quite  Alone,"  and  was  mainly  a 
study  of  character  :  the  heroine  being  a  French  lady 
whose   profession  was  that  of  a  circus  rider,  and   who 
was  afflicted   by  a   most  diabolical   temper.     Dickens 
was  very  pleased  with  the  idea,  and  secured  it  for  All 
the  Year  Round ;  and  my  name  was  to  be  attached  to 
it,  so  that  my  sole  grievance  associated  with  Household 
Words  was  now  amply  compensated.     Mr.  Frederick 
Chapman,   of   the    publishing   firm    of    Chapman   and 
Hall,  heard  of  the  forthcoming  fiction,  and  secured  the 
copyright  on   handsome  terms.     It  was  about  three- 
parts  finished  when  there  came  to  me,  quite  unexpect- 
edly, an  offer  from  the  proprietors  of  the  Daily  Telegraph 
to  proceed   as  a  special  correspondent  to  the   United 
States,  then  in  the  midst  of  war.     For  many  months 
prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the  great  contest  between  the 
North  and  the  South,  the  English  public  resolutely  re- 
fused to  believe  that  Federals  and  Confederates  would 
come  to  blows.     There   had  come  to   England  a  very 
curious  tvpe  of   American    character,   a    Mr.   George 
Francis  Train,  who  had  scarcely  been  out  of  his  boy- 
hood ere  he  made  a  large  fortune   by  mercantile  trans- 
actions in  China  and  Australia.     His  object  in  visiting 
this  country  was  to  start  in  the  metropolis  and  in  large 
provincial  towns  a  system  of  tramways,  such  as  were 
then  common  in  American  cities. 

We  are  plentifully  endowed  with  tramways  at  the 
present  day ;  but  Mr.  G.  F.  Train,  as  a  benefactor  in 
this  particular  direction,  came  a  little  too  soon  ;  and  it 
is  usually  the  fortune  of  premature  benefactors  to  be 
reviled,  spat  upon,  and  driven  out  of  the  cities  which 
they  wish  to  benefit.     Mr.  Train  began  to  put  down  a 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  19 

tramway  at  the  corner  of  Oxford  Street  and  the  Edg- 
ware  Road  ;  but  the  parochial  authorities  soon  made 
him  take  -it  up  again.  He  was  indicted  for  causing  a 
nuisance,  tried  at  the  Croydon  x\ssizes,  convicted,  and 
iined  ;^500.  Prior,  however,  to  this  convincing  proof 
of  British  appreciation  of  his  merits  being  given  to 
him,  he  was  suffered  to  entertain  the  nobility  and  gen- 
try and  the  representatives  of  literature,  science,  and 
art  at  a  series  of  very  grand  banquets.  He  was  the 
readiest  of  speakers  ;  and  at  one  of  these  symposia  he 
emphatically  declared  his  belief  that  not  one  drop  of 
blood  would  be  shed  in  the  United  States.  It  was  a 
case,  he  observed,  which  might  be  likened  to  Edwin 
Landseer's  picture  of  "  Dignity  and  Impudence  " — the 
North  was  the  great  calm,  powerful  Newfoundland  ; 
the  South  was  the  fussy,  yelping,  but  plucky  little 
Scotch  terrier.  Only  a  few  days  after  George  Francis 
Train  had  made  these  utterances,  Fort  Sumter  was 
fired  upon  by  the  Confederates,  and  in  an  instant  the 
States,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  were 
ablaze. 

Frequent  and  protracted  were  the  conferences  be- 
tween the  proprietors  of  the  DaiVj^  Telegraph  and  my- 
self as  to  how  my  mission  to  America  in  the  midst  of 
war  was  to  be  carried  out.  They  knew  perfectly  well 
that  as  the  son  of  a  West  Indian  lady  and  the  grand- 
son of  a  West  Indian  slave-owner,  my  sympathies  were 
on  the  side  of  the  South  ;  indeed,  I  may  say  that  with 
the  exception  of  the  Morning  5/rtr  — an  able  journal 
long  defunct — the  North  had  very  few  friends  among 
the  organs  of  public  opinion  in  the  metropolis.  An- 
tonio Gallenga  and  Charles  Mackay  had  been  succes- 
sively the  representatives  of  the  Times  at  New  York. 
Gallenga  was  not  actively  hostile  to  the  North ;  but 
he  gave  mortal  offence  to  the  Manhattanites  by  calling 
New  York  itself  "  a  city  of  one  street  "—Broadway. 


30         LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

Then  out  came  W.  H.  Russell,  as  special  war  corre- 
spondent of  the  Times,  who  so  unmercifully  bantered 
the  Federals  for  their  stampede  at  the  first  battle  of 
Bull  Run,  that  on  the  opening  of  the  next  campaign 
the  correspondents  of  the  English  press  were  not  al- 
lowed to  join  the  headquarters  of  the  Federal  Army. 

Then  the  Standard  had  a  wonderful  correspondent 
in  New  York  who,  under  the  signature  of  "  Manhat- 
tan," roundly  abused  the  North,  its  generals,  and  its 
statesmen  three  times  a  week  ;  and  altogether  the 
prospects  of  the  representative  of  an  English  journal 
proposing  to  chronicle  the  events  of  the  day  in  an 
English  newspaper  were  the  reverse  of  inviting. 
However,  I  was  full  of  youth  and  of  love  of  adventure, 
I  was  burning  to  see  what  the  Americans  were  like; 
and  I  counted  the  days  before  I  could  complete  all  my 
arrangements  and  take  my  ticket  for  Boston,  where 
it  was  settled  that  I  should  land.  My  wife,  woman- 
like, was  bitterly  opposed  to  my  going  to  America  at 
all ;  and  the  idea  of  my  travelling  in  a  country  con- 
vulsed by  war  so  preyed  upon  her  mind  that  she  be- 
came positively  ill,  and  my  departure  had  to  be  post- 
poned for  a  week  till  she  got  a  little  better.  One  cir- 
cumstance, however,  conduced  in  an  eminent  degree 
to  soothe  her  in  her  sorrow.  I  had  as  a  travelling 
companion  my  old  friend  John  Livesey,  a  son  of  one 
of  the  earliest  leaders  of  the  teetotal  movement.  In 
1863  Mr.  Livesey  was  interested,  to  a  large  extent,  in 
some  iron  mines  in  Nova  Scotia.  He  had  crossed  the 
Atlantic  man)^  times  ;  and  from  Halifax  the  exigencies 
of  business  took  him  frequently  to  Boston,  New  York, 
and  Philadelphia.  The  Daily  Telegraph  made  me  an 
offer  of  ^1,000  for  a  six  months'  tour  in  the  States, 
in  the  course  of  which  time  I  was  to  write  two  arti- 
cles a  week.  I  had  a  dim  idea  that  America  was 
rather  an  expensive    country  to  travel  in  :    so  I  con- 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  21 

suited  John  Livesey  on  the  point.  He  reflected  for  u 
time,  and  then  made  answer  :  "  On  the  whole,  I  should 
say,  yes  ;  with  the  letters  you  have  got,  you  will  have 
to  go  a  good  deal  into  society  and  to  entertain  as  well 
as  to  be  entertained.  But  you  cannot  take  your  wife 
with  you.  A  thousand  pounds  would  not  hold  out  for 
four  months."  My  wife,  I  am  glad  to  say,  also  had  a 
companion  during  my  absence  ;  this  was  the  widow  of 
Robert  Brough,  who,  with  her  dear  little  daughter 
Fanny,  came  to  live  with  Mrs.  Sala  in  Guildford 
Street,  and  abode  there  some  months. 

It  was  at  eight  o'clock  on  a  dark  November  night 
that  John  Livesey  and  I  departed  by  the  express  com- 
monly known  as  "  The  Wild  Irishman  "  for  Holyhead. 
My  wife,  who,  poor  woman,  could  scarcely  move,  in- 
sisted on  coming  to  the  railway  terminus  with  me  ; 
and  a  party  of  my  friends  were  on  the  platform  to 
give  us  a  parting  cheer.  I  shall  never  forget  a  burly, 
bearded  guard  at  Euston,  who,  when  I  had  parted 
fi'om  all  that  was  dear  to  me  in  the  world,  and  had 
flung  myself  in  a  very  limp  -and  boneless  manner  in 
the  corner  of  the  carriage  of  the  mail,  thrust  his  head 
into  the  window  and  whispered  :  "  Excuse  me,  sir  ; 
but  you  have  another  three-quarters  of  a  minute  be- 
fore the  train  starts,  and  you  can  get  out  and  give  the 
lady  another  '  hug  '  " — the  which  I  did.  I  am  sure 
that  guard  must  have  been  a  family  man,  and  had 
given  some  one  a  hug  before  he  went  on  duty  that 
night.  God  bless  him,  any  way,  and  I  hope  that  all 
his  journeys  have  been  as  prosperous  as  mine. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  go  into  extended 
detail  touching  that  which  I  saw  and  that  which  I  did 
in  the  United  States;  my  sojourn  in  which  country, 
allowing  for  a  few  weeks  which  I  passed  in  Mexico 
and  the  Spanish  West  Indies  in  the  spring  of  1864, 
extended  over  a  period  of  nearly  thirteen  months  ;  so 


22        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

that  I  received  from  the  proprietors  of  the  Daily   Tel- 
egraph more  than  iJ"2,ooo  for  my  journey.     Livesey's 
prediction  that  I  should  not  be  able  to  have  my  vi^ife 
with  me  in  the  States  was  not  altogether  verified.     As 
I  incidentally  mentioned  in  the  precursor  of  this  book, 
"  Things  I   Have  Seen,  and  People  I  Have  Known," 
gold  was  at  a  tremendously  high  premium  in  America 
in  1864.     It  rose  sometimes  to  cent,  per  cent.     Now,  I 
drew  on  my   bankers,  Messrs.  Duncan,  Sherman  and 
Co.,    for  gold,  or,  rather,  the  value  of  gold  as  repre- 
sented in  Government  greenbacks  ;    thus,   for  a  hun- 
dred pounds,  of  which  the  normal  value  would  have 
been  five  hundred  dollars,  I  used  to  get  from  seven 
hundred  to  a  thousand.    The  prices  of  articles  of  daily 
life  varied  according  to  the  rate  of  exchange.     I  did 
not  live  in  New  York  on  what  is  called  "  the  Ameri- 
can   system,"   by   which   everything,  except  alcoholic 
liquors,  is  included  in  the  weekly  charge  for  board. 
These  charges  had  gone  up  since  the  war  ;  and  I  think 
that  at    the  first-class  hotels,   the  St.  Nicholas — long 
since  defunct — the  New  York,  and  the  Fifth  Avenue, 
board  was  $4  a  day.     I  lived  at  the  Brevoort  House, 
on  Fifth  Avenue  and  Eighth  Street,  close  to  Washing- 
ton Square,  an  establishment  of  which  the  proprietor 
was    a    Mr.   Clark,   a    most    courteous    and    obliging 
g^entleman. 

The  hotel  was  conducted  on  the  European  system. 
You  paid  so  much  a  day  for  your  room,  and  an  addi- 
tional four  or  five  dollars  if  you  wanted  a  private  par- 
lour— a  supplement  which  was  to  me  more  a  neces- 
sity than  a  luxury,  as  I  was  obliged  to  have  a  good 
many  books  and  papers  about  me  for  journalistic  pur- 
poses. There  was  a  first-rate  restaurant  attached  to 
the  hotel,  where  you  breakfasted  and  lunched  and 
dined  a  la  carte.  On  the  whole,  my  bills  at  the  Bre- 
voort House  were  rarely  under  ;^2o  a  week  in  English 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  23 


sterlincr  ;  but  when  I  travelled  far  afield,  to  Boston,  to 
Philadelphia,  to  Baltimore,  to  Washington,  and  to 
Niagara,-  I  experienced  the  full  benefit  of  the  high  rate 
of  exchange.  Railway  fares  had  not  risen  ;  nor  were 
the  charges  for  expressing  your  luggage  increased. 
The  price  of  board  at  the  best  hotels  was  slightly,  but 
not  seriously,  enhanced  ;  and  I  lived  at  hotels  conduct- 
ed on  the  boarding  system.  I  had  brought  with  me  a 
very  large  wardrobe,  and  I  had  need  to  have  done  so, 
since  gloves  were  sometimes  $3  a  pair,  and  boots  $15 — 
in  greenbacks. 

Somehow  or  another  I  so  managed  matters  that  I 
always  had  around  balance  at  Duncan  and  Sherman's; 
and  I  remember  one  day  my  kind  friend,  James  Lori- 
mer  Graham,  who  was  an  ardent  partisan  of  the  North, 
saying  to  me  at  the  end  of  a  lively  political  discussion, 
"  You've  no  reason  to  grumble,  any  way  ;  why,  con- 
found it,  you're  living  on  your  exchange ;  "  and  so  to  a 
certain  extent  I  was.  I  had  in  April  sufificient  spare 
cash  by  me  to  take  a  trip  to  Havana  and  Mexico  ;  and 
again,  in  June,  when  the  Daily  Telegraph  credited  me 
with  another  thousand  pounds,  I  sent  home  for  my 
wife,  who  came  out  to  New  York  and  travelled  with 
me  to  the  chief  northern  cities,  to  Niagara,  to  Mon- 
treal, Quebec,  and  Toronto,  and  to  the  watering-places 
of  Newport  and  Saratoga.  She  used  often  to  say, 
laughing,  that  our  first  conversation,  when  I  had 
brought  her  from  the  wharf  at  Jersey  City,  was  of  a 
somewhat  prosaic  nature.  She  immediately  began  to 
overhaul  the  contents  of  my  wardrobe,  and  in  a  voice 
in  which  sweetness  was  mingled  with  severity,  ob- 
served, "  You  are  twenty-four  pocket-handkerchiefs 
short ;  and  what  have  you  done  with  your  socks  ?  " 
To  this,  I  believe,  I  made  the  wholly  unpoetical  reply, 
"  Bother  my  socks  ;  have  you  got  any  gold  ?  "  It  was 
so  long  ere  I  had  gazed  on  the  blessed  efifigy  of  Her 


24        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

Majesty  on  a  golden  disc.  Sometimes,  however,  I 
was  constrained  to  buy  gold  down  town  before  making 
a  trip  to  Canada.  The  Canadians  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  greenbacks  :  their  currency  was  in  dollars 
and  cents ;  but  it  was  a  metallic  one ;  and  if  you 
brought  any  greenbacks  with  you,  it  was  only  at  a 
ruinous  discount  that  you  could  get  them  cashed. 

Livesey  and  I  spent  Christmas,  1863,  at  Montreal,  in 
Lower  Canada,  taking  Niagara  on  our  way ;  and  on 
Christmas  Day  we  dined  with  a  hero  of  the  Crimean 
War — Sir  William  Fenwick  Williams  of  Kars.  I  also 
remember  meeting  at  Montreal  a  very  genial  naval 
officer,  Admiral  de  Horsey ;  and  it  was  also  at  Mon- 
treal that  I  had  the  honour  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 
Major  Wolseley,  now  Field-Marshal  Viscount  Wolse- 
iey.  Some  weeks  afterwards,  at  Washington,  and  sub- 
sequently at  New  York,  I  made  the  pleasant  acquaint- 
ance of  a  young  gentleman  named  Malet,  who  is  now 
Sir  Edward  Malet,  Her  Majesty's  ambassador  at  Ber- 
lin. I  do  not  mention  these  trifling  circumstances  in 
any  spirit  of  vanity  or  conceit.  1  merely  cite  them  in 
proof  of  what  is  to  me,  in  my  old  age,  an  extremely 
gratifying  fact.  The  friends  I  have  made  I  have  been 
fortunate  enough  to  keep  ;  and  the  great  folks  whom  I 
have  known  during  a  very  long  and,  I  hope,  a  modest 
and  undemonstrative  career,  have  not  dropped  me. 

I  found  Montreal  a  highly  interesting  city,  but  not 
quite  so  picturesque  a  one  as  Quebec.  It  was  not 
French  enough  for  me,  although  I  was  hospitably  re- 
ceived in  a  good  many  French  houses  ;  and  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Montreal  was  so  polite  as  to  ask  me  to  come 
and  taste  his  hothouse  grapes,  of  which  his  Grace  cul- 
tivated no  less  than  eighteen  varieties.  By  the  time 
that  I  had  got  to  the  twelfth,  I  am  afraid  that  I  meekly 
suggested  that  a  small  quantity  of  the  juice  of  the 
grape  in  its  fermented  condition — that  is  to  say,  a  glass 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC 


of  dry  sherr}' — would  not,  under  the  circumstances,  be 
unacceptable.  Another  friend  whom  I  made  in  Mon- 
treal was  Colonel  Earle,  who  had  recently  exchanged 
from  the  Line  into  a  regiment  of  the  Guards  ;  and,  as 
General  Earle,  afterwards  met  his  death,  valiantly 
fighting  in  the  Egyptian  campaign.  I  had  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  him  from  Mr.  Young,  the  editor  of  the 
Nexv  York  Albion,  a  brother  of  Mr.  George  Frederick 
Young,  the  noted  advocate  of  Protection,  who  once 
had  a  furious  newspaper  passage -of -arms  with  the 
present  Sir  Robert  Peel  on  the  question  of  Protection 
versus  Free  Trade. 

Finally,  through  whose  introduction  I  know  not,  1 
was  introduced  to  an  officer  in  the  Scots  Guards,  who 
afterwards  became  one  of  my  dearest  friends,  and 
whose  premature  death  I  bitterly  lamented  and  still 
lament.  This  was  Captain,  afterwards  Colonel,  James 
Ford,  the  son  of  a  Canon  of  Exeter,  to  whom  students 
of  Dante  are  indebted  for  an  admirable  translation  of 
the  "  Inferno,"  and  a  nephew,  if  I  mistake  not,  of  the 
Ford  who  wrote  the  "  Handbook  to  Spain,"  and  a 
large  number  of  essays  on  Spanish  subjects,  in  the 
Quarterly  Review.  Montreal,  early  in  1863,  was  full  of 
British  troops  and  fugitive  Confederates.  The  Scots 
and  the  Grenadier  Guards  were  stationed  at  Montreal; 
the  Rifle  Brigade  were  at  Hamilton  ;  and  I  still  occa- 
sionally meet  and  talk  over  old  times  with  one  of  the 
then  officers  of  the  Rifles — Lord  Edward  Pelham  Clin- 
ton. 

I  have  said  that  Montreal  was  full  of  Confederates, 
ladies  as  well  as  gentlemen  ;  and  one  night,  dining  at 
the  mess  of  the  Scots  Guards — 1  think  that  they  were 
Scotch  Fusiliers  in  those  days — I  found  another  civil- 
ian guest,  whose  name  was  Brune,  a  very  wealthy 
merchant  from  Baltimore,  but  whose  political  proclivi- 
ties being  strongly  Southern  had  impelled  him  to  cross 


26  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


the  Anglo-American  frontier  in  a  hurry.  There  was 
such  a  prodigious  quantity  of  hrst-rate  claret  consumed 
on  this  memorable  evening  that  the  feast  was  known 
in  the  annals  of  the  regiment  as  "  the  great  Brune 
night."  "  Secesh  "  sentiments  were  the  rule,  and  sym- 
pathy with  the  North  the  exception.  The  fun  became 
very  fast  and  furious  ;  and  about  midnight  these  jocund 
sons  of  Mars  persuaded  me  to  sing,  as  a  compliment  to 
Mr.  Brune,  the  famous  Confederate  song  of  "  Mary- 
land, my  Maryland!"  I  had  just  concluded  the  stir- 
ring verse  : — 

"  Thou  wilt  not  yield  the  traitor  toll, 

Maryland,  my  Maryland  ! 
Thou  wilt  not  crook  to  his  control, 

Maryland,  my  Maryland  ! 
Better  the  fire  upon  thee  roll ; 
Better  the  shot,  the  blade,  the  bowl. 
Than  crucifixion  of  the  soul, 

Maryland,  my  Maryland  !  " 

The  exquisitely  beautiful  melody  of  this  stirring  song 
is   that  of   the  German  Volkslied,  "  O  Tannenbaum  ! 

0  Tannenbaum  !  "  (Oh  fir-tree) ;  and  of  the  German 
Studentenlied  "  Gaiideavius  igitiir  Juvenes  diim  Sumusr 

1  say  that  I  had  just  finished  this  verse,  and  was  pro- 
ceeding to  attack  the  concluding  stanza,  beginning  : 

"  I  hear  the  distant  thunder  hum," 

when  we  became  aware  of  the  melodious  sound  of 
female  voices  outside  the  mess-room.  Upon  my  word, 
the  Confederate  ladies,  who  had  retired  to  rest  at  a 
comparatively  early  hour,  had  arisen  from  their 
couches,  wrapped  themselves  in  cloaks  and  dressing- 
gowns,  and  were  singing  the  chorus  of  "  O  Maryland, 
my  Maryland  !  "  The  Grenadier  Guards  had  a  mess 
of  their  own  in  Jacques-Quartier  Square  ;  and  among 
the   officers    of   that  gallant  corps  were  the  Duke  of 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  2/ 

Athole  and  Lord  Abinger;  the  last-named  nobleman  was 
married,  during  his  stay  in  Canada,  to  Miss  Magruder, 
the  daughter  of  the  well  known  Confederate  General. 
It  was  not  until  the  summer  of  1864  that  I  visited 
Quebec.  Travelling,  in  the  first  instance,  by  steamer, 
on  the  beautiful  river  St.  Lawrence,  and  by  the  Thou- 
sand Islands,  the  romantic,  old-fashioned  aspect  of  the 
old  capital  of  Lower  Canada  pleased  me  hugely.  Que- 
bec was  then  the  residence  of  a  Governor-General  of 
Canada,  Viscount  Monck,  and  we  were  hospitably  en- 
tertained at  his  Excellency's  summer  quarters  near 
Quebec.  I  specially  remember  these  viceregal  din- 
ners, for  two  very  different  reasons.  Lord  Monck's 
butler  had  been  the  proprietor  of  the  original  Indus- 
trious Fleas,  and  his  talented  troupe,  including  the 
flea  that  drew  the  cannon,  the  flea  that  rode  in  the 
sedan-chair,  and  the  flea  that  impersonated  Napoleon 
Bonaparte's  charger,  Marengo,  had  all  been  burnt — 
poor  little  insects  ! — in  a  terrible  fire  at  the  Governor's 
country  seat.  The  next  reason  why  Lord  Monck's 
hospitality  still  dwells  in  my  mind  is,  that  I  met  at  his 
table  the  illustrious  Gordon,  without  being,  in  the 
slightest  extent,  aware  of  the  fact ;  indeed,  I  did  not 
know  it  until  a  very  few  years  ago,  when  a  lady — a 
relative,  I  believe,  of  Lord  Monck — in  some  Reminis- 
cences which  she  published  of  her  sojourn  in  Canada, 
enumerated  Gordon  and  my  humble  self  among  the 
guests  at  this  particular  banquet.  I  venture  to  think 
that  the  lady  was  rather  pleased  with  me  than  other- 
wise, for  she  incidentally  mentioned,  in  her  book,  that 
when  I  was  presented  to  Lady  Monck,  "  I  bowed  like 
a  courtier."  Goodness  gracious  me  !  How  did  the 
lady  expect  me  to  behave  ?  Did  she  think  that  I 
ought  to  have  entered  the  drawing-room  on  all-fours, 
or  that  I  should  have  hopped  about  on  one  leg,  like 
the  burglar  in  Mr.  Gilbert's  comedy  ? 


28  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

/ 

Animated  debates  were  going  on  in  the  Legislature 
at  Quebec  on  the  subject  of  the  Federation  of  all  the 
British  North  American  colonies  ;  and  one  of  the  most 
animated  speakers  on  the  subject  of  the  proposed  Do- 
minion of  Canada,  was  the  late  D'Arcy  Magee,  a  sin- 
gularly gifted,  accomplished,  and  amiable  native  of  the 
Sister  Isle.  Good-looking,  eloquent  of  speech,  and  a 
ready  writer,  he  had  been  in  his  salad  days,  when  he 
was  green  of  judgment,  a  Young  Irelander ;  but  emi- 
grating to  Canada,  had  become  a  staunch  Loyalist, 
and  when  I  knew  him,  he  was  Minister  of  Agriculture. 
It  was  his  mournful  fate,  ultimately,  to  be  murdered 
by  a  Fenian.  D'Arcy  Magee  and  I  were  great  cronies  ; 
and  I  am  indebted  to  him  for  one  of  the  drollest  elec- 
tioneering stories  that  ever  1  heard.  It  was  at  Mon- 
treal, at  the  height  of  some  electoral  contest  for  the 
representation  of  the  city,  that  one  of  the  candidates 
had  convened  a  meeting  of  negro  electors,  who,  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  evening,  seemed  far  from  favour- 
able to  him.  He  went  on  speaking,  however,  and 
dwelt  over  and  over  again  on  the  then  burning  tariff 
question,  telling  his  hearers  that  what  they  chiefly 
needed  was  a  carefully-adjusted  system  of  ad  valorem 
duties. 

Now  it  chanced  that  there  had  just  entered  the  hall 
a  young  nigger-waiter  from  an  adjacent  restaurant, 
who  held  under  one  arm  another  waiter — but  a  dumb 
one— a  japanned  tin  tray,  in  fact.  The  negroes  are 
very  fond  of  rhythm  ;  they  like  sound,  without  troub- 
ling themselves  much  concerning  sense,  and  somehow 
or  another  the  words  ad  valoi'cm  tickled  the  ears  of  the 
young  darkey  from  the  restaurant.  "  Ad  valorum,  ad 
valorum,  ad  valorum  ! "  he  repeated  in  rapid  crescendo, 
rapping  meanwhile  the  japanned  tin  tray  with  a  door- 
key.  It  was  as  though  he  had  sounded  the  loud  tim- 
brel in   Egj'pt's   Dark   Sea.      "  Ad   valorum,   ad    val- 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  29 

orum  !  "  the  whole  audience  began  to  shout,  to  scream, 
and  to  yell,  clapping,  meanwhile,  their  hands,  and 
stamping  their  feet  on  the  ground  ;  and  then  there 
arose  an  aged  negro  of  great  influence  in  political  cir- 
cles at  Montreal,  who  thus  addressed  his  hearers : 
"  My  brudders,  we  must  all  vote  for  old  Ad  Valorum 
— bully  for  you,  Ad  Valorum,"  The  candidate  was 
returned  by  a  thumping  majority,  and  was  ever  after 
known  in  darkey  circles  as  "  Good  old  Ad  Valorum." 
There  was  a  Dominion  dinner,  if  I  mistake  not,  dur- 
ing my  stay  in  Quebec,  and  I  had  to  make  a  speech. 
Then  one  of  the  regiments  of  the  line  at  the  citadel 
asked  me  to  mess ;  and  there  I  met  dear  Hawley 
Smart,  then  a  captain  in  the  5th  Foot ;  he  had  gone 
out,  I  think,  as  an  ensign,  to  the  Crimea,  and  had  won 
his  commissions  of  captain  and  lieutenant  on  the  field 
of  battle.  Already,  in  1864,  he  was  thinking  of  litera- 
ture, and  showed  me  a  capital  sporting  article  which 
he  had  written,  called  "  Saratoga  Races."  He  and 
James  Forde,  of  the  Scots  Fusiliers,  came  down  to 
New  York  in  the  course  of  the  j^ear,  and  stayed  with 
us  at  the  Brevoort  House.  Hawley  Smart  was  a 
nephew  of  the  renowned  racing  baronet.  Sir  Joseph 
Hawdey,  at  whose  house,  at  West  Brighton,  I  was  en- 
abled, through  the  kindness  of  my  friend,  the  Hon. 
Francis  Lawley,  to  pass  many  pleasant  hours.  I  was 
nervous  at  first  about  accepting  Sir  Joseph's  invita- 
tion ;  since — although  I  have  long  studied  the  history 
and  the  anatomy  of  the  horse,  and  can  draw  the  animal 
tolerably  well — I  am  as  ignorant  as  a  Pottawottomi 
Indian  of  all  turf  matters.  But,  to  my  agreeable  sur- 
prise, I  found  Sir  Joseph  Hawley's  house  full  of  rare 
books  and  splendid  specimens  of  the  Old  Masters, 
among  the  last  of  which  I  recollect  a  magnificent  full- 
length  life-sized  portrait  by  Sir  Anthony  Vandyck,  of 
a  Doge  of  Genoa,   whose  robes  of   crimson    damask 


30  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


seemed  absolutely  to  flow  over  the  frame  and  reach 
the  carpet.  It  was  as  agreeable  to  find  that  the  racing 
baronet  was  well  versed  in  literature,  old  and  new,  and 
that  he  was  an  expert  connoisseur  and  critic  in  art ; 
nor  during  the  day  did  he  once  make  mention  of  such 
a  quadruped  as  a  race-horse. 

There  was  one  drawback  to  enjoyment  of  life  at 
Quebec.  The  hotels  were  few,  and  not  good  ;  so  that 
we  put  up  at  a  boarding-house,  kept  by  a  lady  by  the 
name  of  Steele,  where  we  were  really  very  comfortable, 
and  experienced  the  greatest  attention  and  courtesy 
from  our  hostess.  I  was  praising  her  to  an  American 
gentleman  sta3ang  in  the  house,  whose  terse  comment 
on  my  panegyric  was  as  follows  : — "  Kind,  clever  lady  ! 
I  should  say  so.  Why,  sir,  she  was  raised  on  Picca- 
dilly." Yes,  there  is  something  in  "  being  raised  on," 
or  born,  or  educated  in  Piccadilly.  It  gives  one  some 
kind  of  a  social  cacJiet.  Of  course,  we  visited  all  the 
sights  of  Quebec ;  and  I  went  out  to  the  Plains  of 
Abraham,  to  see  the  monument  erected  by  the  pious 
care  of  Lord  Aylmer,  when  Governor  of  Canada,  to 
the  memory  of  the  two  heroic  foes — the  French 
Marquis  de  Montcalm  and  the  English  General 
James  Wolfe — who,  on  this  never-to-be-forgotten  bat- 
tle-field, "met  a  common  death,  and  inherited  a  com- 
mon glory." 

We  made  an  excursion  to  a  village  on  the  banks  of 
the  St.  Lawrence,  called  Indian  Lorette ;  and  thence 
proceeded  to  see  the  picturesque  Falls  of  Montmo- 
rency, much  smaller  than  those  of  Niagara,  but,  to  my 
mind,  surpassing  them  in  beauty.  Indian  Lorette  was 
one  of  the  queerest  half-French,  half-Redskin  town- 
ships that  I  met  with  in  Canada.  In  some  respects, 
when  you  alighted  from  your  carriage,  you  seemed  to 
have  landed  right  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury.    There  was  a  seigneur  du  village,  who,  the  day 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  31 


being  Sunday,  was  driven  to  church  in  an  old-fashioned 
yellow  chariot,  hung  upon  very  high  springs.  He  was 
an  old  gentleman, 'and  I  did  not  ask  his  name;  because 
I  was  resolved  to  believe,  for  the  nonce,  that  he  could 
not  possibly  have  any  other  name  than  that  of  the 
Marquis  de  Carabas.  He  had  a  pew  in  the  church 
large  enough  to  hold  twenty  worshippers,  and  al- 
though I  would  not  swear  to  the  fact,  I  think  that  the 
officiating  priest  prayed  for  him  as  well  as  for  the 
Queen  and  the  Governor-General. 

But  I  must  return  to  Montreal  on  my  way  back  to 
the  States.  It  was  at  Montreal  that  I  first  met  the  late 
Sir  James  Macdonald,  one  of  the  ablest  statesmen  that 
Canada  has  produced  ;  and  the  place  of  my  meeting 
him  was  the  office  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Railway,  Can- 
ada, just  after  a  Board  meeting,  at  which  one  of  the 
directors  told  me  they  had  had  to  consider  an  applica- 
tion from  one  of  the  switchmen  on  the  line,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  an  American  citizen,  for  three  weeks' 
leave  of  absence,  in  order  that  lie  jiiigJit  attend  to  his 
ditties  as  a  nicndier  of  the  Legislature  in  the  State  of  Ver- 
mont. There's  labour-membership  for  you,  if  you  like ! 
and  we  seem  to  be  coming  rapidly  to  a  similar  condi- 
tion of  things  in  this  country.  Sir  James,  then  Mr. 
Macdonald,  was,  facially,  wonderfully  like  Lord  Bea- 
consfield  ;  and  when  in  Ministerial  uniform,  the  re- 
semblance of  the  Canadian  to  the  British  statesman 
was  so  close  as  to  be  almost  comic.  Another  distin- 
guished politician  whom  I  met  at  Montreal  was  Sir 
George  Brown,  the  proprietor  of  the  Toronto  Globe, 
who  was  destined,  poor  gentleman,  to  die  by  the  hand, 
not  of  a  Fenian,  but  of  a  vindictive  workman. 

The  heat  of  a  New  York  summer  proved  too  much 
for  my  wife  ;  although  I  was  revelling  in  perpetual 
sunshine.  We  tried  a  villegiatura  at  Saratoga,  and  an- 
other at  Newport;  but  at  the  end  of  July  my  wife  de- 


32        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

clared  that  another  month  in  America  would  kill  her ; 
so  I  sent  her  home  by  one  of  the  splendid  steamships 
of  the  Cunard  line,  under  the  comm'and  of  that  excel- 
lent master-mariner  and  Commodore  of  the  Cunard 
Fleet,  Captain  Jenkins.  He  was  the  politest  of  skippers, 
and  his  name  was  a  household  word  among  the  ladies 
in  the  upper  circles  of  Fifth  Avenue  and  Washing- 
ton Square.  He  was  a  wag,  too,  and  I  know  not  now 
how  many  times  has  been  related  his  retort  to  the  lady 
who  persistently  asked  him  "  whether  it  was  always 
foggy  off  the  coast  of  Newfoundland."  "  Blame  my 
cats,  ma'am!"  he  replied,  "do  you  think  I  live  there?" 
The  Commodore  was  always  an  adept  at  improvisa- 
tion ;  and  some  of  his  patter  songs  were  as  humorous 
as  they  were  spontaneous. 

I  came  home  by  the  Cunard  steamship  Asia,  in  De- 
cember,  just  in  time  for  Christmas  in  Guildford  Street, 
but  ere,  for  the  present,  I  part  from  the  great  Repub- 
lic, I  may  be  allowed  to  say  a  few  words  touching  two 
of  the  closest  of  my  many  American  friends.  The  two 
gentlemen  I  allude  to  are  the  late  Samuel  Ward  and  the 
still  living  William  Henry  Hurlburt.  Samuel  Ward, 
or  Uncle  Sam,  as  he  was  popularly  known,  was,  when 
I  knew  him,  in  the  prime  of  life.  That  life  he  had  be- 
gun under  highly  favourable  auspices,  coming,  as  he 
did,  of  an  ancestral  New  York  family,  and  having  en- 
joyed, as  he  had  done,  a  thorough  classical  education. 
He  was,  furthermore,  a  fluent  French  scholar  and  a 
poet  of  no  mean  calibre.  He  began  his  career  as  a 
partner  in  the  great  banking  firm  of  Prime,  Ward,  and 
King,  in  Canal  Street,  New  York;  and  afterwards  had 
been  concerned  in  all  kinds  of  commercial,  financial, 
and  mining  adventures  in  Mexico  and  California.  I 
have  not  the  slightest  idea  as  to  what  business  "  Uncle 
Sam  "  carried  on  in  1864.  Throughout  the  Legisla- 
tive Session  he  was  generally  travelling  between  New 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  33 

York  and  Washington,  and  interviewing,  or  being  in- 
terviewed by,  leading  politicians,  for  conference  with 
whom  in  the  Federal  capital  he  had  a  mysterious  lit- 
tle house  of  his  own,  somewhere  near  Pennsylvania 
Avenue.  Whether  he  rolled  logs,  or  ground  axes,  or 
pulled  wires,  or  was  a  lobbyist,  or  a  mugwump,  or 
bull-dosed  anybody,  it  is  no  business  of  mine  to  inquire. 
1  only  know  that  he  always  seemed  to  have  plenty  of 
money,  that  his  conversation  was  delightful,  and  his 
hospitality  inexhaustible.  His  first  wife,  I  think,  had 
been  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Astor.  His  second 
spouse  was  a  Miss  Zenobia  Grimes,  of  an  old  family  in 
Massachusetts.  "  Uncle  Sam  "  was  a  consummate  gas- 
tronome ;  although,  like  most  genuine  epicures,  his 
appetite  was  a  very  moderate  one. 

We  used  to  dine  much  better  than  I  can  dine  at  this 
time  of  day  in  London  at  Delmonico's,  which  had  then 
two  branches  "  down  town,"  one  in  Beaver  Street,  and 
another  at  the  corner  of  Chambers  Street ;  and  a  thii'd 
at  the  corner  of  the  then  fashionable  East  Fourteenth 
Street  and  Fifth  Avenue.  Then  there  was  another 
very  splendid  restaurant  "  up  town,"  called  La  Maison 
Doree ;  and  finally,  there  was  an  excellent  house  for 
dinner  in  Lafayette  Place,  where  Sam  Ward  always 
kept  a  stock  of  rare  wines.  The  other  intimate  friend 
of  mine,  whom  I  first  knew  in  1864,  was  William  Henry 
Hurlburt,  who  was  then,  as  he  is  now,  a  distinguished 
journalist.  At  the  time  of  which  I  speak  he  was  a 
leader  writer  in  the  New  York  World,  of  which  the 
editor  was  Mr.  Manton  Marble.  I  have  rarely  known 
a  man  so  varied  in  accomplishments  as  Hurlburt.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  conversationalists  I  ever 
met  with  ;  and  he  could  judge  things  from  an  English 
as  well  as  from  an  American  standpoint.  A  scholar,  a 
linguist,  a  traveller,  a  brilliant  writer,  a  fluent  public 
speaker,  with  a  singularly  melodious,  yet  forcible  voice. 


34  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

All  the  fairies,  save  one,  seemed  to  have  been  pres- 
ent at  his  christening.  Many  years  after  we  became 
friends,  an  American  lady  in  Rome  told  me  that  Hurl- 
burt,  early  in  his  career,  had  been  an  Unitarian  min- 
ister ;  and  that  he  won  the  admiration  of  the  female 
part  of  his  congregation,  not  only  by  his  eloquence  as 
a  preacher,  but  also  through  the  circumstance  that  he 
was  accustomed  to  ascend  the  pulpit  stairs  "  with  a 
true  polka  step." 

The  friendship  which  I  conceived  for  William  Henry 
Hurlburt  remains  undiminished  to  this  day.  I  am  not 
one  of  those  who  desert  old  friends  when  they  are 
under  a  cloud.  He  was  defendant  in  an  action  for 
breach  of  promise  of  marriage,  and  the  jury  returned 
a  verdict  in  his  favour  ;  but  there  were  some  mysterious 
features  in  the  case  which  have  never  been,  and  prob- 
ably never  will  be,  cleared  up ;  and  I  am  wholly  at  a 
loss  to  understand  the  acharnement  with  which  Hurl- 
burt has  been  pursued.  I  was  subpoenaed  as  a  witness, 
to  testify  as  to  his  handwriting  in  certain  letters  which 
were  submitted  to  me  ;  but  I  told  the  plaintiff's  counsel, 
Mr.  Candy,  Q.C.,  that  I  could  not  possibly  swear  that 
the  oalligraphy  of  this  correspondence  was  Hurlburt's: 
inasmuch  as  I  had  not  received  a  letter  from  him  for 
full  twenty  years ;  that  I  had  to  read,  every  year,  thou- 
sands of  communications  from  all  sorts  of  people  from 
all  parts  of  the  world  ;  and,  finally,  that  I  was  more 
than  half  blind.  So  the  learned  counsel  affably  told  me 
to  go  about  my  business. 

Soon  after  returning  to  England  I  published  the 
article  which  I  had  written  in  the  Daily  Telegraph  under 
the  title  of  "  My  Diary  in  America  in  the  Midst  of  War," 
and  I  dedicated  the  two  volumes  to  W,  H.  Russell  with 
the  simple  legend  "  Crimea,  India,  America."  Is  there 
a  British  journalist  who  has  done  more  for  his  country, 
for  the  Republic — I  mean  the  term  in  its  true  sense, 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  35 


La  Chose  Publigue,  the  Public  Thing— than  William 
Howard  Russell?  When  our  heroic  soldiers  before 
Sebastopol  were  half  starving,  in  rags,  and  decimated 
by  sickness,  Russell,  as  war  correspondent  of  the  Times 
newspaper,  recorded  their  sufferings  and  denounced 
the  carelessness,  the  stupidity,  the  crass  imbecility  of 
the  Government  and  its  officials,  who  had  been  the 
prime  cause  of  the  misery  and  the  mortality  in  the  ranks 
of  the  British  Army.  No  history  of  the  war,  into  the 
undertaking  of  which  England  was  cajoled  by  the 
tortuous  policy  of  Napoleon  III.,  would  be  complete 
without  the  amplest  of  justice  being  done  to  not  only 
William  Howard  Russell,  but  to  the  heroic  Florence 
Nightingale,  the  "  Lady  of  the  Lamp  "  of  Longfellow. 

"  On  England's  annals,  through  the  long 
Hereafter  of  her  speech  and  song, 
That  light  its  rays  shall  cast 
Through  portals  of  the  past. 

"  A  lady  with  a  lamp  shall  stand 
In  the  great  history  of  the  land, 
A  noble  type  of  good 
Enduring  womanhood." 

By  the  way,  Alexis  Soyer,  who,  during  his  stay  in 
the  East,  did  yeoman's  service  in  the  hospital  kitchens 
at  Balaclava  and  Scutari,  told  me  a  story  about  Miss 
Nightingale,  which  I  have  not  seen  in  print.  A  soldier 
who  had  been  severely  and  shockingly  wounded  was 
in  such  dire  agony  that,  after  the  manner  of  his  kind, 
he  burst  into  a  frenzy  of  cursing  and  swearing,  for 
which  he  was  sternly  rebuked  by  the  surgeon,  who  was 
bandaging  his  wounds.  "  How  dare  he,"  asked  the 
medico,  "  use  such  language  in  the  presence  of  a  lady." 
Miss  Nightingale  was  standing  close  by,  and  she  said 
quietly  to  the  surgeon  :  "  Please  to  mind  your  own  busi- 


$6  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

ness.  Can't  you  see  that  the  poor  man  is  in  fearful 
pain,  and  does  not  know  what  he  is  saying?" 

"  America  in  the  Midst  of  War  "  was  published  by 
Tinsley  Brothers,  of  Catherine  Street,  who  paid  me 
;^8oo  for  the  copyright.  Thus,  contrasting  the  finan- 
cial results  of  my  American  tour  with  those  of  my 
Russian  journey  seven  years  before,  I  think  that  on 
the  whole  the  balance  was  much  in  favour  of  the 
Transatlantic  expedition.  I  went  back  to  my  old 
business  of  writing  six  leaders  a  week  in  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  quite  unconscious  that  another  most  stirring 
and  eventful  year  was  before  me.  In  April,  1865,  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  III.  was  preparing  to  make  a  prog- 
ress through  Algeria  ;  and  my  proprietors  suggested 
that  I  should  follow  the  Imperial  party,  and  send  home 
letters  descriptive  of  what  I  had  seen  in  North  Africa ; 
so  I  once  more  bade  farewell  to  my  household  gods  in 
Guildford  Street  and  started  for  Paris  en  route  for 
Marseilles  and  Algiers. 

Before,  however,  I  recount  mv  experiences  of  a  trip 
to  Barbary,  I  may  mention  a  somewhat  ludicrous  ad- 
venture which  happened  to  me  in  connection  with  that 
excellent  American  comedian,  Mr.  Joseph  Jefferson, 
the  unrivalled  impersonator  of  Rip  Van  Winkle.  One 
Saturday  I  saw  an  advertisement  in  the  papers  stating 
that  on  the  ensuing  Monday  Mr.  Jefferson  was  to 
make  his  appearance  at  the  Adelphi  Theatre  in  Dion 
Boucicault's  strikingly  romantic  Rip  Van  Winkle.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  often  met  Mr.  Jefferson  in 
society  in  New  York,  and  that  we  had  been  on  friendly 
and,  indeed,  intimate  terms ;  so  I  wrote  to  him  at  the 
Charing  Cross  Hotel  as  follows  :  "  Dear  Old  Hoss, — 
Pork  and  beans  to-morrow  at  seven.  Come  on."  The 
letter  was  duly  sent'to  the  hotel  ;  but  early  on  Sunday 
morning  the  terrible  truth  broke  on  my  mind  that  the 
actor  who  had  been  so  friendly  to  me  in  New  York 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  37 

was  not  named  Jefferson,  bnt  had  an  entirely  different 
appellation  ;  and  that  I  did  not  know  Mr,  Joseph  Jef- 
ferson of  Rip  Van  Winkle  fame  from  the  Man  in  the 
Moon.  How  the  astounding-  aberration  had  come 
about  I  cannot  tell.  I  passed  the  day  in  moody  per- 
turbation. At  7.30  p.m.,  lo  and  behold  !  Mr.  Joseph 
Jefferson,  in  full  evening  dress,  duly  made  his  appear- 
ance, "  I  wasn't  going  to  miss  a  good  chance,"  he  said, 
as  he  took  his  seat  at  our  humble  board,  and  we  spent 
a  delightful  evening. 

I  may  also  in  this  connection  remark  that  just  before 
I  went  to  the  States  I  had  the  honour  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  Miss  Kate  Bateman,  a  young  and  beau- 
tiful actress,  who  took  the  town  by  storm  by  her 
pathetic  and  impassioned  performance  of  Leah  in  the 
drama  of  that  name,  which  was  played  for  I  know  not 
how  man}^  months  in  succession  at  the  Adelphi.  Hor- 
ace and  Augustus  Mayhew,  Charles  Kenney,  and  I 
used  to  go  at  least  three  times  a  week  to  the  stalls  at 
the  Adelphi  for  the  express  purpose  of  weeping  bitterly 
over  the  woes  of  the  persecuted  Hebrew  maiden,  and 
of  being  thrilled  by  the  terrific  curse  which  she  ut- 
tered. I  remembered  the  charming  actress  as  having, 
when  quite  a  little  girl,  played  in  conjunction  with  her 
sister  as  "  The  Bateman  Children  "  at  the  Surrey  The- 
atre, and  also  at  the  St.  James's.  Their  papa  was  a 
highly  typical  American  gentleman  whom  we  used  to 
call  Colonel  Bateman.  Eventually,  he  became  lessee 
and  manager  of  the  Lyceum  ;  and  it  was  under  his 
spirited  management  that  Henry  hwing  made  his  earli- 
est and  most  brilliant  successes. 

Colonel  Bateman  had  one  curious  physical  peculiar- 
ity ;  he  had  a  head  of  hair  as  bushy  as  Henri  Roche- 
fort's  ;  but  it  was  rebellious  hair,  hair  that  would  not 
be  either  parted  or  smoothed.  There  was  a  story 
told  about  this  head  of  hair  and   clever  little  William 


860 


rW 


-i 


38  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

MacCoiinell,  the  artist,  which  will  bear  relating. 
There  was  a  dress  rehearsal  at  the  Lyceum  one  even- 
ing, and  the  stalls  were  very  full.  Little  MacConnell 
was  sitting  just  behind  Colonel  Bateman,  who  had  his 
hat  on.  The  artist  could  see  nothing  of  what  was 
going  on  ;  and  he  touched  the  manager  on  the  shoul- 
der, saying  :  "  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  take  your 
hat  off?"  "  Willingly,"  replied  the  always  courteous 
and  obliging  colonel.  Off  went  his  hat,  but  suddenly 
up  sprang  his  rebellious  hair  like  so  many  quills  of  the 
fretful  porcupine.  "  For  Heaven  s  sake  put  your  hat  on 
again,''  cried  little  MacConnell  in  dismay. 

A  very  good  fellow,  an  "all-round  "  one,  was  Colonel 
Bateman  ;  he  had  a  varied  experience  as  a  theatrical 
manager  in  the  States,  and  was  full  of  droll  stories  of 
theatrical  vicissitudes  ;  among  which  I  remember  one 
of  his  having  taken  a  company  touring  in  a  barge 
down  the  Mississippi.  Times  were  bad  and  audiences 
scanty.  One  evening  when  the  colonel  was  playing 
King  Lear  to  a  sadly  exiguous  audience,  in  the  middle 
of  the  storm  scene,  the  actor  who  played  Edgar 
rushed  on  to  the  stage  and  exclaimed,  "  By  Jove ! 
Colonel,  Cordelia  has  got  a  bite."  Cordelia,  who  was 
not  wanted  from  the  end  of  the  first  to  the  fifth  act, 
had  been  busily  engaged,  at  the  stern  of  the  barge,  in 
fishing. 

Colonel  Bateman  may  also  be  credited  with  having 
introduced  into  London  conversational  circles  the 
capital  anecdote  of  the  two  Virginians  who  thought 
that  they  had  been  grossly  overcharged  for  the  re- 
freshments which  they  had  consumed  at  a  saloon  in 
New  York.  After  much  wrangling  with  the  saloon- 
keeper, one  of  the  friends  whispered  to  the  other, 
"  Jem,  pay  the  bill  for  the  honour  of  old  Virginny  ; 
but  shoot  the  beggar  behind  the  bar."  The  New 
Journalist  may   very  probably  scout  this  storj^  as  a 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  39 


chestnut ;  but  I  have  always  liked  to  study  the  gene- 
sis of  jokes  and  to  give  due  credit  to  those  persons 
who  have  first  set  them  a-foot. 

I  remarked  that  I  went  to  Paris  in  April.  I  found 
at  the  Grand  Hotel  William  Russell,  who  had  come  to 
see  a  daughter  who  was  at  school  close  to  the  Porte 
Maillot.  We  were  at  breakfast  on  a  furiously  hot 
morning,  the  20th  or  the  21st  of  April,  when  we  read 
in  Galignani  the  news  of  the  assassination  on  the  14th 
at  Ford's  Theatre,  Washington,  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
President  of  the  Republic  of  the  United  States,  by 
John  Wilkes  Booth.  I  had  known  the  assassin  at 
Montreal,  in  Canada.  He  was  a  strikingly  handsome 
man,  dark,  with  a  piercing  gaze ;  but  to  me  he  ap- 
peared to  be  in  a  chronic  state  of  "  whiskey  in  the 
hair"  and  verging  on  dcliriiun  tremens. 

I  am  under  the  impression  that  on  the  night  on 
which  I  took  my  departure  for  Algeria  the  first  per- 
formance of  Meyerbeer's  opera  L Africaine  took  place 
at  the  Academic  Imperiale  de  Musique,  but  I  cannot 
be  exactly  certain  of  this  point,  inasmuch  as  in  that 
very  compendious  work  called  "  Celebrities  of  the 
Century,"  it  is  stated  that  L Africaine,  which  had  been 
off  and  on  in  rehearsal  since  1838,  when  Scribe  first 
placed  his  libretto  in  the  composer's  hands,  was 
brought  out  at  the  Grand  Opera  in  1861  ;  whereas  I 
am  now  referring  to  1864.  At  all  events,  I  know  that 
a  certain  number  of  tickets  for  representatives  of  the 
London  press  had  been  granted  by  the  Director  of  the 
Opera,  and  these  gentlemen,  comprising  Mr.  James 
Davison,  the  musical  critic  of  the  Tijncs,  Sutherland 
Edwards,  and  Augustus  Harris,  the  father  of  the  pres- 
ent knightly  impresario,  together  with  your  humble 
servant,  dined  very  comfortably  at  the  Cafe  Riche.  A 
little  before  eight  my  musical  friends  went  off  to  their 
stalks  d'orchestre  ;  and  I  departed  for  Barbary. 


40  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

I  had,  however,  to  wait  a  couple  of  days  at  Mar- 
seilles to  witness  the  arrival  of  the  Emperor  and  his 
suite.  Some  years  had  passed  since  I  had  visited  the 
Phoccean  city  ;  and  I  was  fairly  amazed  at  the  changes 
for  the  better  which  had  taken  place  at  Marseilles 
since  the  establishment  of  the  Second  Empire.  The 
town,  as  I  knew  it  first,  was  about  the  dirtiest  and 
most  evil-smelling  mass  of  houses,  inhabited  by  a  pop- 
ulation as  unwashed  and  as  malodorous  as  could  well 
be  conceived.  At  least  Csesar  had  cleansed  Marseilles. 
At  least  he  had  sanitated  it.  At  least,  under  his  sway, 
magnihcent  new  streets  had  been  built,  and  the  his- 
toric Cannebiere  endowed  with  palatial  hotels  in  lieu 
of  the  filthy  and  comfortless  inns  of  yore,  reeking  with 
the  fumes  of  garlic  and  bad  tobacco.  The  Marseillais 
professed  to  be  very  grateful  to  Caesar  for  what  he  had 
done  for  them,  and  they  actually  built  and  presented 
to  the  Empress  a  handsome  palade  on  the  sea  shore, 
where,  as  they  put  it,  their  Imperial  Majesties  "  could 
always  have  one  foot  in  the  sea." 

When  the  Empire  collapsed  the  good  city  of  Mar- 
seilles forgot  all  the  benefits  which  had  been  conferred 
on  it  by  Napoleon  III.;  and  after  the  ex-Emperor's 
death  the  Municipality  of  Marseilles  contested  the 
right  of  the  Empress  to  retain  the  palace,  which  was 
her  own  personal  and  private  property.  A  lawsuit 
followed  ;  and  the  Municipality,  in  the  course  of  the 
legal  proceedings,  had  the  exquisite  good  taste  to 
style  the  Empress  Eugenie,  "  the  widow  Bonaparte." 
Her  Majesty  won  the  day  ;  but  with  quiet  disdain  she 
renounced  her  rights  to  keep  possession  of  the  palace. 

Most  thoroughly  did  I  appreciate  my  trip  to  Al- 
geria ;  it  was  the  first  taste  I  had  had  of  the  East,  and 
although  the  lower  part  of  the  city  of  Algiers  does 
not  differ  very  much  from  an  ordinary  French  seaport 
town,  the  upper  part,   or  Kasbah,  was,  in    1864,  alto- 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  41 

gether  Moorish.  Strangest  of  sights  to  me  were  the 
Moorish  women,  gliding  about  the  streets  in  what 
appeared  to  be  white  muslin  clothes-bags  and  pillow- 
cases, and  their  features,  all  save  the  dark  and  piercing 
eyes,  concealed  by  the  white  yas/unak,  or  veil.  Al- 
giers, however,  has  become  during  the  last  quarter  of 
a  century  such  a  favourite  winter  resort  for  English 
people  that  I  do  not  propose  to  bore  you  with  any 
detailed  description  of  the  place  or  the  people.  My 
business  is  with  His  Imperial  Majesty  Napoleon  III., 
and  his  progress  through  Csesarian  Mauritania.  I  had 
brought  with  me  letters  of  introduction  to  the  Prefect 
of  Algiers,  to  General  Fleury,  the  Imperial  ]Master  of 
the  Horse,  and  to  M.  Pietri,  the  Emperor's.  Private 
Secretary,  and  at  seven  o'clock  one  morning  I  had  an 
audience  of  Napoleon  III.  himself.  His  Majesty  was 
fresh  from  his  bath,  and  was  wrapt  up  in  what  seemed 
to  be  a  railway  rug,  girt  round  his  waist  by  a  silken 
sash.  He  was  most  condescending,  and  gave  me  per- 
mission to  follow  the  Imperial  cortege  to  the  borders  of 
Kabylia  :  adding  laughingl}^  the  tour  would  be  rather 
a  costly  one,  but  that  English  newspaper  correspond- 
ents had  so  much  money.  I  replied  with  the  lowest 
of  bows  that  it  was  the  newspaper  proprietors  who 
had  the  money,  but  that  the  correspondents  were  gen- 
erally in  a  state  of  the  direst  indigence.  The  Emperor 
spoke  French,  and  smoked  a  cigar  during  the  audi- 
ence. It  was  not  till  1868  that  he  finally  abandoned 
the  Havana  for  cigarettes,  the  fumes  of  which  he  was 
almost  incessantly  inhaling,  A  more  dazzling  progress 
than  that  of  Csesar  through  his  Algerian  dominions  I 
have  rarely  seen.  One  remembers  the  old  historians' 
account  of  Alexander's  progress  through  India.  The 
dazzling  uniforms  of  the  Imperial  staff  contrasted 
strangely  enough  with  the  white  burnouses  of  the 
Bedouin  chiefs  who  came  in  from  the  desert  on  their 


42  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

grey  steeds,  and  very  often  with  their  coursing  grey- 
hounds in  leash. 

It  was  at  a  place  called  Boufarik,  after  an  Agricult- 
ural Show,  that  I  came  across  a  gentleman  of  whom 
history  should  make  some  mention.  I  found  him  sit- 
ting on  a  stone  in  the  middle  of  a  courtyard  of  an 
Arab  house ;  he  had  a  large  umbrella  over  his  head, 
and  he  was  perspiring  profusely.  There  was  nothing 
strange  in  those  circumstances ;  still  my  curiosity  was 
awakened  when  the  gentleman  told  me  that  he  was  of 
Swiss  nationality,  that  his  name  was  Dunant — he  was 
waiting  for  an  audience  with  the  Emperor — and  that 
he  was  the  promoter  of  the  Geneva  Convention,  or 
Red  Cross  Ambulance  system,  than  which,  I  suppose, 
a  more  humane  and  Samaritan  undertaking  has  not 
been  known  since  the  foundation  of  the  institution  of 
Sisters  of  Charity  by  Saint  Vincent  de  Paul. 

I  journeyed  to  Oran,  the  capital  of  the  westernmost 
department  of  Algeria,  on  the  Mediterranean.  A  per- 
formance was  given  at  the  theatre,  at  which  the 
Emperor  was  present ;  but,  visiting  the  house  on  the 
following  evening,  I  noticed  an  exceedingly  droll  in- 
cident. There  was  an  opera  troupe  at  Oran,  and  the 
piece  played  was  L Italiana  in  Algicri — the  heroine 
being  an  Italian  damsel,  who  had  been  captured  by 
Algerine  pirates.  Next  to  me,  in  the  stalls,  was  sit- 
ting an  immensely  fat  old  Turk,  one  of  the  orthodox 
old-fashioned  types  of  Osmanlis,  who  had  not  yet  re- 
linquished his  huge  white  turban,  his  caftan,  and  his 
baggy  breeches  for  the  red  fez  and  single-breasted 
black  frock-coat  of  the  modern  Turk.  Whenever  the 
heroine  came  on  the  stage  the  corpulent  old  Turk  be- 
gan to  laugh,  and  continued  laughing  till  his  very  sides 
shook.  It  was  not  a  noisy  laugh  ;  but  a  series  of  sub- 
dued chuckles,  similar  to  those  in  which  we  read  that 
the  elder  Mr.  Weller  was  wont  to  indulge.     I  asked 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC 


the  friend  sitting  next  to  me,  who  was  the  editor  of  a 
newspaper,  what  on  earth  the  corpulent  infidel  was 
laughing-,  about.  "  The  opera  tickles  his  fancy  so," 
replieci  my  friend.  "  Thirty-five  years  ago,  just  before 
the  capture  of  Algiers  by  the  French,  he  was  one  of 
the  wealthiest  slave  dealers  in  Oran,  and  his  brother 
was  a  notable  pirate,  who,  I  warrant  you,  had  kid- 
napped many  scores  of  Italian  and  Greek  ladies  in  his 
time." 

When,  after  visiting  Constantine  and  other  places 
too  numerous  to  mention,  the  Emperor  and  his  brill- 
iant followers  returned  to  Algiers,  a  grand  banquet 
and  ball  were  given  at  the  Palace  of  Mustafa  Supe- 
rieur  at  Algiers.  The  scene  in  the  palace  gardens,  in 
which  all  the  trees  were  festooned  with  coloured 
lamps,  and  in  which  the  mingling  of  Oriental  and 
French  military  costumes  was  curiously  picturesque, 
was  like  a  dream  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  grafted  on 
the  vision  of  some  grand  festivity  at  the  Tuileries  or 
Saint  Cloud.  I  preserve,  nevertheless,  one  very  dis- 
agreeable reminiscence  of  the  supper  at  Mustafa  Su- 
perieur.  The  menu  comprised  ostrich  eggs,  boiled 
hard,  cut  in  slices,  and  served  with  a  piquante  sauce. 
I  tried  a  slice  ;  I  never  tasted  anything  so  abominably 
nasty  in  my  life.  There  is  a  memory  of  tastes  as  of 
everything  else ;  and  while  I  am  writing,  the  hideous 
savour  and  odour  of  that  slice  of  ostrich  o.^^  distinctly 
recurs  to  me. 

I  left  Algeria  shortly  after  Midsummer,  and  came 
home  in  a  sufficiently  leisurely  manner.  Being  at 
Marseilles,  I  naturally  proceeded  to  Nice,  which  was 
unbearably  hot,  and  spent  a  couple  of  days  at  some- 
what cooler  Monaco,  where  there  was  a  little  bit  of  a 
gambling  house  in  the  upper  town  itself.  Then  I 
travelled  to  Paris  ;  and  so  took  the  train  to  Strasburg, 
wandered  up  and  down  the  Rhineland  for  a  week  or 


44        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


two,  and  then  wooed  Fortune  at  the  Kursaal,  at  Hom- 
biirg.  I  backed  the  red  steadily,  and  won  a  good 
round  sum  ;  prudently  avoiding,  for  some  time,  any 
speculation  on  the  numbers  at  roulette.  But  a  non- 
professional gamester  is  sure  to  make  a  fool  of  himself 
at  some  time  or  another,  before  he  bids  farewell  to  the 
tables.  Just  for  fun,  you  know,  I  backed  thirty-six, 
my  own  age,  at  the  period  named,  with  a  gold  Freder- 
ick ;  and  thirty-six  won.  Then,  of  course,  I  took  to 
plastering  the  tapis  vert  with  gold  pieces  enplein,  a 
cJieval,  and  so  forth  ;  always  "  insuring,"  as  the  silly 
term  goes,  on  zero ;  and  in  a  day  or  so  I  was  very  com- 
fortably di'cavc\  or  "  cleaned  out."  It  was  ten  o'clock 
at  night ;  and  having,  as  I  thought,  lost  the  whole  of 
my  available  cash,  I  was  turning  in  deep  disgust  from 
the  table,  when  a  friendly  croupier  called  out  to  me, 
"  But,  Monsieur,  you  had  a  louis  on  zero."  Yes,  I  had 
"insured"  on  zero,  and  I  thought  that  I  had  lost  it; 
but  as  it  turned  out  that  zero  had  won,  I  left  a  portion 
of  my  winnings  on  zero,  and  zero  came  up  again. 
Then  I  gathered  up  my  winnings  ;  went  off  to  the 
trcnte-ct-quarante  tables,  and  won  more  money  before 
the  Kursaal  closed  than  I  had  ever  won  in  my  life.  My 
luck  continued  for  an  entire  week,  and  it  appeared  to 
me  that  it  would  be  a  very  excellent  thing  to  invest  a 
portion— the  major  portion — of  my  booty  in  jewellery 
for  my  wife.  Every  afternoon  when  I  returned  from 
Homburg  to  Frankfurt,  to  dine  at  the  Hotel  de  Russie, 
I  used  to  buy  valuable  bracelets  and  necklaces,  rings 
and  chatelaines,  at  the  principal  shops  in  the  Zeil  ;  and 
it  was  positively  delightful  at  night  to  open  the  nice 
little  morocco  jewel  cases,  lined  with  white  or  blue 
satin,  and  gaze  at  the  sparkling  baubles  within. 

My  luck  turned,  and  away  went  the  balance  of  my 
winnings.  Then,  naturally,  I  had  recourse  to  the  good 
offices  of  Herr  Hirsch,  Herr  Wolf,  Herr  Kohn,  Herr 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  45 

Hahn,  Herr  Fuchs,  etc.,  etc.,  dealers  in  second-hand 
jewellery,  and  I  punctually  lost  the  proceeds  of  my 
sales.  I  kept  the  morocco  cases,  however ;  and  when 
I  returned  to  Guildford  Street,  Russell  Square,  I 
turned  those  incomplete  symbols  of  conjugal  affection 
out  of  my  travelling  bag  ;  and  related,  half  laughingly 
and  half  groaning,  the  story  of  my  discomfiture.  At 
least  the  empty  cases  showed  that  my  intentions  had 
been,  in  the  first  instance,  praiseworthy.  But  the 
road  to  a  certain  place,  we  all  know,  is  paved  with 
good  intentions,  and  empty  morocco  cases  which  have 
once  contained  gems  may  be  among  them. 

By  this  time  the  autumn  was  far  advanced.  But 
my  friends  in  Peterborough  Court  thought  that 
another  foreign  tour  would  do  me  good,  and  them- 
selves no  harm  ;  so  we  arranged  a  lengthened  Conti- 
nental journey,  in  which  I  was  to  be  accompanied  by 
my  wife,  which  was  to  begin  at  Brussels,  and  termi- 
nate at  St.  Petersburg,  and  Moscow.  IM}-  proprietors 
knew  perfectly  well  Avhat  they  were  about ;  thev 
wished  to  continue  my  training  as  a  journalist,  and  as 
special  correspondent,  so  that  when  I  was  at  home, 
and  leading  articles  on  the  institutions  and  manners  of 
foreign  countries  were  required,  I  could  write  en 
plcine  connaissancc  dc  cmisc. 

We  left  England  in  November ;  stayed  awhile  at 
Brussels  ;  did  the  field  of  Waterloo,  and,  by  some  odd 
caprice  of  Fate,  went  out  of  our  way  to  the  city  of 
Cassel,  as  dull  and  dreary  a  German  town  as  could 
well  be  met  with,  but  which  had,  to  me,  an  odd  attrac- 
tiveness, due,  I  should  say,  to  my  having  frequently 
read  that  wonderfully  vehement  and  superbly  phrased 
pamphlet  of  Mirabeau  : — the  "  Avis  aux  Hessois."  His 
Highness  Frederick  11.,  Elector  of  Hesse-Cassel,  em- 
bellished the  capital  of  his  dominions  with  several  very 
handsome  public  buildings,  art  galleries,  and  so  forth : 


46  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

the  expenses  being  defrayed  out  of  his  own  private 
purse.  His  wealth  had  been  acquired  by  trafficking 
in  the  flesh  and  blood  of  his  subjects,  whom  he  lent, 
for  a  consideration,  to  the  King  of  Great  Britain,  to 
fight  his  battles  in  America  and  elsewhere.  Five 
thousand  Hessian  troops  were  hired  to  fight  against 
the  Pretender  in  Scotland  ;  and  the  English  Govern- 
ment paid  twenty-two  millions  of  dollars  for  twelve 
thousand  Hessians  who  were  sent  to  America  between 
1776  and  1784.  It  was  this  system  of  dealing  in  white 
human  fiesh  and  blood  that  incited  Mirabeau  to  pen  his 
furious  tractate,  which  I  have  always  considered  to  be 
one  of  the  principal  portents  of  the  Revolution  of  1789. 

Then  we  visited  the  historic  gardens  and  palace  of 
Wilhelmshohe,  the  North  German  Versailles.  That 
palace  was  to  be,  only  five  years  later,  the  residence 
of  Napoleon  HI.  as  a  prisoner  of  war.  We  went  to 
Hamburg,  and  thence  to  Holland,  passing  a  very 
pleasant  time  at  Rotterdam,  at  Amsterdam,  and  at  The 
Hague.  At  the  handsome  Opera  House,  at  the  last- 
named  city,  they  were  playing  Halevy's  opera.  La 
Juivc.  Many  of  my  readers  may  be  aware  that  the 
great  majority  of  the  chorus  singers  at  Dutch  theatres 
are  always  Jews ;  and  it  was  extremely  funny  when 
the  Jewess — who  was  a  Christian  young  lady,  with 
blue  eyes  and  auburn  hair — made  her  first  appearance 
in  the  piece,  to  find  her  pursued  by  a  howling  mob 
who  were  lyrically  supposed  to  be  Christians,  but  who 
were  in  reality  Israelites,  and  who  passionately  de- 
manded that  the  accursed  Jewess  should  be  drowned, 
or  hanged,  or  burnt. 

Coming  out  of  Holland,  we  returned  to  North  Ger- 
many ;  and  so,  passing  through  Cologne,  took  up  our 
quarters  at  the  comfortable  Hotel  de  Russie,  hard  by 
the  Schloss  Briicke  at  Berlin.  There  we  spent  our 
Christmas ;  and  I  was  making  arrangements  to  pro- 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  47 

ceed  to  Konigsberg,  en  route  for  St.  Petersburg,  to  see 
what  the  Tsar's  capital  looked  like  in  winter,  when  I  re- 
ceived a  telegram  containing  only  these  words : — "  Rev- 
olution, Spain.  Go  there  at  once."  The  instructions 
were  certainly  vague ;  still  I  understood  them  at  once, 
and  thoroughly.  It  was  a  bitterly  severe  winter  ;  but 
there  Avas  otherwdse  no  impediment  to  my  journeying 
to  Madrid  at  once.  My  wife  accompanied  me  as  far 
as  Paris,  whence  I  sent  her  back  to  England.  I  only 
stopped  three  hours  in  the  French  capital,  and  then, 
travelling  night  and  day,  took  the  railway  to  Bordeaux, 
and  thence  across  the  Pyrenees  to  Madrid.  There 
w^ere  no  wagon-lits  in  those  days.  I  had  left  my  slip- 
pers behind  me  wdiile  hurriedly  packing  at  Berlin,  and 
I  never  took  my  boots  off  till  I  reached  the  Spanish 
capital.  Even  then  it  could  scarcely  be  said  that  I 
took  my  boots  off  ;  since  they  had  to  be  cut  from  my 
swollen  feet.  The  revolution  in  Spain  turned  out  a 
sorry  "  fizzle  "  ;  there  had  been  a  military  pi'onnncia- 
miento  agfainst  the  government  of  Oueen  Isabella  in 
one  of  the  regiments  in  garrison  near  Madrid  ;  but 
after  a  few^  courts-martial  had  been  held,  a  few  officers 
and  soldiers  shot,  and  a  few  deputies  deported  to  the 
Balearic  Isles,  confidence  w'as  restored  and  order 
reigned  in  Madrid.  I  had  a  letter  of  introduction  from 
the  Foreign  Office  to  Sir  John  Crampton,  Her  Bri- 
tannic Majesty's  Minister  to  the  Court  of  Queen  Isa- 
bella, who,  like  all  the  British  diplomatists  with  whom 
I  have  come  in  contact  in  the  course  of  ray  wander- 
ings, treated  me  with  the  utmost  cordiality.  But  I 
was  even  more  fortunate  in  finding  at  a  stately  man- 
sion the  playfellow  of  my  childhood,  dear  "  Vicky  " 
Balfe,  now  become  the  Duchess  of  Frias,  the  wife  of  a 
grandee  of  Spain  of  very  ancient  lineage,  whose 
father  had  been  Ambassador  Extraordinary  at  the 
Court  of  St.  James's  at  the  coronation  of  Queen  Vic- 


48  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

toria.  Balfe,  the  composer,  was  also  staying-  with  his 
daughter  and  son-in-law.  I  was  continually  at  their 
house,  and  met  there  the  youthful  Duke  of  Alva  and  a 
number  of  Spanish  nobles  of  the  sangre  aziil,  the  por- 
traits of  whose  ancestors  looked  down  on  j^ou  in  the 
deathless  canvases  of  Titian  and  Valasquez,  The 
kindly  Duke  of  Frias  was  much  pleased  with  the  in- 
terest which  I  told  him  that  1  had  long  taken  in  the 
Avork  of  the  Spanish  painter  and  etcher,  Don  Francisco 
Goya  y  Lucientes,  whose  "  Bull-fighting  "  and  "  Pris- 
oners "  series  of  engravings  I  had  already  acquired. 
It  is  to  the  generosity  of  the  Duke  of  Frias  that  I  owe 
the  addition  to  m.y  collection  of  Goyas  the  "  Desastres 
de  la  Guerra,"  the  "  Caprichos,"  and  the  "  Prover- 
bios ; "  together  with  copies  in  monochrome  of  the 
two  famous  studies  of  an  Andalusian  belle,  "  La  Maja," 
one  draped  and  the  other  undraped  ;  the  model  it  has 
now  been  ascertained  having  been  not  by  any  means, 
as  was  commonly  asserted,  an  eccentric  Duchess  of 
Alva,  but  a  once  popular  Spanish  actress. 

There  was  just  one  little  embarrassing  circumstance 
attendant  on  my  knowing  Her  Majesty's  Minister 
Plenipotentiary  as  well  as  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of 
Frias.  The  first  husband  of  Victoi'ia  Balfe  was  Sir 
John  Crampton  himself;  but  the  marriage  had  been 
annulled  for  reasons  which  it  is  perfectly  unnecessary 
to  specify  here,  but  which  reflected  no  moral  discredit 
on  either  party.  Now,  I  used  to  go  with  tolerable 
frequenc}^  to  the  Embassy  ;  and  his  Excellency  would 
often  ask  me  how  the  Duchess  of  Frias  was  looking. 
There  was  scarcely  a  day,  on  the  other  hand,  that  I 
did  not  see  either  the  Duke  or  Duchess ;  and  my  former 
playfellow  would  usually  ask  how  Sir  John  Crampton 
was  looking.  Have  I  not  said,  and  more  than  once, 
that  this  is  an  extremely  funny  world,  if  we  only  took 
care  to  keep  our  eyes  open  to  the  comic  episodes  ? 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  49 


In   Madrid  also  did   I  gain  the  friendship  of  a  still 
living    and    revered    journalistic    confrere,    whom    the 
Times  had  sent  out  as  special  correspondent  to  describe 
the  incidents  of  the  revolution  which  turned  out  to  be 
a  fizzle — Antonio  Gallenga,  and    his  devoted,  accom- 
plished,  and   still  living  wife;  and   I   remember  Mrs. 
Gallenga   summing   up    the    Spanish    character    thus 
tersely  and  vividly  :     "  We  went  to  Toledo,"  she  said  ; 
"and  there  were  seven  men  in  cloaks  gathered  under 
an  archway,  close  to  the  hotel,  and  smoking  cigarettes. 
We  spent  five  hours  sight-seeing  in  Toledo  ;  and,  re- 
turning to  the  hotel  to  pay  the  bill,  and  return  to  the 
railway  station,  we  found  the  same  seven  men  wrapped 
in  cloaks,  and  smoking  papelitos,  gathered   under  the 
archway."     The  man  in  the  capa  or  cloak — which,  by 
the  way,  he  arranges  in  precisely  the  same  manner 
that  the  ancient  Romans  disposed   their   togas — is  a 
permanent  institution  in   Madrid.     He  is  all  over  the 
city  ;  but  it  is  chiefly  in  the  great  Square,  the  Puerta 
del  Sol,  with  a  fountain  in  the  middle,  where  converge 
the  principal  streets  of  the  city,  that   the  man  in  the 
cloak  congregates  with  other  mysterious  Madrilefios, 
in  more  or  less  shabby  mantles.     You  may  see  some- 
thing of  the  same  kind  every  afternoon  in  the  Piazza 
Colonna  at  Rome  ;  but  the  Spanish  loafer  hangs  about 
the  Puerta  del  Sol  from  ten  in  the  morning  until  late 
at  night.     It  may  be  assumed  that  at  early  morn  he 
has  taken   the  national  breakfast  of  a  cup  of  chocolate 
made  very  thick,  with  a  glass  of  cold  water — the  Span- 
ish drinking-water  is  the  most  refreshing  in  the  world 
— and  a  slice  of  bread ;  but  whether  he  ever  lunches  or 
dines,  I  am  not  prepared   to  state ;  nor,  again,  can  I 
certify  that  he  has  any  other  wearing  apparel  under- 
neath that  cloak.     What  is  he  ?     Some  say  that  he  is  a 
cesante — an  ex-Government  clerk,   who  for  reasons  of 
economy  has  been  eliminated  from  the  service  without 
n.— 4 


50  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


any  pension.  There  he  was,  however,  in  the  spring  of 
1865  ;  there  he  was  the  next  time  I  returned  to  Madrid, 
more  than  ten  years  afterwards ;  and  there  he  is,  I 
have  not  the  slightest  doubt,  in  1894,  in  apparently  the 
same  cloak,  wearing  the  same  sombrero,  and  puffing  at 
the  s3.YaQ  papelito. 

It  was  in  Madrid,  too,  that  I  renewed  my  acquaint- 
ance with  worthy  Mr.  James  Ashbury,  then  a  young 
millionaire,  whom  I  had  first  known  in  the  United 
States,  and  who  had  come  to  Spain  on  some  matter  of 
a  railway  or  a  mining  concession.  In  company  with 
Mr.  Ashbury,  I  visited  that  astonishing  monument  of 
art  and  devotion,  the  Escorial,  which  English  people, 
for  some  reason  unknown  to  me,  persist  in  spelling 
Escurial ;  just  as  they  say  aiito  da  fc  instead  of  auto  de 
fe,  and  guerra  al  cucJiillo  instead  of  a  cuchillo.  The  last 
was  the  terse  reply  of  Palafoz  at  Saragosa  to  the 
French  general  who  summoned  him  to  surrender. 
Gjierra  a  cuchillo  answers  in  Spanish  to  our  "  war  to  the 
knife  ;  "  but  guerra  al  cuchillo  would  mean  "  war  against 
the  knife."  I  can  see  now  the  gridiron-planned  palace 
monastery  rising  from  the  foot  of  the  jagged  Sierra  in 
gloomy,  almost  savage,  state.  We  did  the  Escorial 
thoroughly,  but  as  a  museum  of  curios  there  was  not 
much  to  behold.  The  monastery  was  stripped  of  its 
treasures  by  Napoleon's  legions,  and  most  of  the  good 
pictures  have  been  removed  to  the  Museum  at  Madrid. 
A  few  old  monks  were  pottering  about,  and  showed  us 
the  rare  coloured  marbles  and  the  prodigious  frescoes 
by  Luca  Giordano,  commonly  called  "  Luca  fa  Presto," 
or  "  Luke  in  a  Hurry."  Chiefly  in  connection  with 
this  dreary  edifice  there  dwells  in  my  mind  the  Pan- 
teon,  or  royal  tomb-house,  in  which  are  deposited, 
among  other  defunct  Spanish  sovereigns,  the  ashes  of 
Charles  V.  The  friars  showed  us  also  the  black  mar- 
ble shelf  on  the  edge  of  which  Queen  Isabella  of  Spain 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  5  I 

had,  with  a  pair  of  scissors,  scratched  her  name,  as  in- 
dicating the  spot  where,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  her  re- 
mains would  rest.  We  declined  an  invitation  to  visit 
the  adjoining  Panteon  de  Los  Infantes,  commonly 
called  "  El  Pudridero,"  where,  among  other  members 
of  the  royal  house  of  Spain,  moulder  the  bones  of  the 
unhappy  Don  Carlos. 

We  returned  to  Madrid  just  in  time  for  the  Car- 
nival, which,  at  the  time  of  which  I  speak,  was  quite 
an  important  festival  in  aristocratic  Madrid  society. 
The  streets  throughout  the  day  presented  a  veritable 
masquerade ;  there  being  a  great  many  more  masked 
and  fancifully-attired  persons  in  the  street  than  indi- 
viduals in  ordinary  costume.  Of  course  I  except  the 
loafers  or  mooners  of  the  Puerta  del  Sol,  who,  wrapped 
in  their  capas,  gathered  as  usual  round  the  great  foun- 
tain, and  regarded  the  brilliant  scene  around  them 
with  stale  and  accustomed  looks,  puffing  their  papelitos 
meanwhile.  In  the  Prado  the  cavalcade  was  marvel- 
lous to  behold  in  its  variety  and  splendour.  All  the 
equipages  of  all  the  grandees  in  Madrid  seemed  to  be 
passing  up  and  down  the  great  drive  ;  but  the  armorial 
bearings  on  the  panels  of  the  carriages  were  carefully 
concealed  by  many-coloured  draperies  ;  and  the  coach- 
men and  footmen,  as  well  as  the  occupants  of  the 
vehicles,  wore  masks  and  dominoes.  The  very  horses 
were  veiled,  and,  save  to  eyes  long  experienced  in 
carnavalesque  proceedings,  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  identify  the  turn-outs  of  even  one's  most  intimate 
friends. 

In  Italy  they  have  a  saying: — 

"In  carnevale 
Ogni  scherzo  e  legale." 

In  carnival  time  all  practical  jokes  are  justifiable. 
Whether  the}'  have  a  kindred  saying  in  Spain,  I  know 


52  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

not ;   but   I   prudently   bore  the   Italian  one   in    mind 
when  a  tall  gentleman,  dressed  as  a  Crusader,  quietly 
removed  from  my  mouth  the  cigar  I  was  smoking  and 
trampled  it  under  foot.    I  knew  what  was  coming.    He 
produced    a    handsome    morocco    cigar-case,    with    a 
monogram  in  gold,  opened    it,  presented    me  with   a 
superb  regalia  imperiale  of  Cabanas  make,  and,  making 
me  the  gravest  of  bows,  departed.     A  friend  told  me 
the  same  morning,  that  as  he  was  writing  a  letter  in  the 
coffee-room  of  his  hotel,  a  perfect  stranger,  masked, 
of  course,  too,  came  up  to   his   table,  took  the  letter 
from    him,  and  to  all  appearance    proceeded  to   read 
it.     He  had  not,  however,  done  anything  of  the  kind, 
for  in  an  instant  he  returned  the  half-finished  missive, 
and  showed   my  astonished   friend   that  he  had   been 
holding  the   letter  upside-down.     In  the   evening  we 
went  to  a  grand  mask  ball  at  the  Opera.     Very  few  of 
the  ruder  sex  were  masked  or  in  dominoes;  the  vast 
majority  were  in  evening  dress  ;  and  the  fun  of  the  even- 
ing was  for  the  ladies,  who  were  all  masked  up  to  their 
eyes,  to  say  impertinent  things  to  you  in  a  shrill  fal- 
setto.    I  think  that  ere  midnight  I  was  told  that  I  was 
a  monster  of  ugliness,  that  I  had   run  away  with  the 
wives  of  several  of  my  most  intimate  friends,  and  that 
I  had  taken  refuge  in  Madrid  because  Great  Britain 
had  at  that  time  no  extradition  treaty  with  Spain,  and 
because  I  was  "  wanted  "  at  home  for  burglary,  incen- 
diarism, forgery,  and  an  attempt  to  poison  my  grand- 
mother. 

The  Spaniards  have  an  exquisitely  keen  scent  for  the 
foreigner ;  although  he  may  minutely  conform  to  Cas- 
tilian  manners  and  customs,  and  speak  the  language 
with  irreproachable  fluency,  they  will  at  once  spy  him 
out  as  an  estranjero.  A  French  lady  whom  I  had  the 
advantage  to  know,  the  wife  of  a  Spanish  officer  of 
rank  and  a  Roman  Catholic,  told  me  that  when  she 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  53 

went  to  matins  at  the  church  of  the  Atocha  at  Madrid 
she  always  adopted  the  Spanish  custom  of  wearing  a 
black  mantilla;  and  she  flattered  herself  that  after  long 
practice  and  with  the  help  of  her  maid  she  had  suc- 
ceeded in  looking,  so  far  as  her  head  and  shoulders 
were  concerned,  altogether  Castilian.  But  it  was  no 
good.  One  morning  a  ragged  street-urchin  "  spotted  " 
her;  and,  pointing  at  her  with  the  forefinger  of  de- 
rision, cried  to  an  equally  tattered  brat,  his  companion, 
'■'  Mira  la  Frances  !  "  "  Look  at  the  Frenchwoman." 

The  Pronimciamiento  which  had  brought  me  in  the 
depth  of  winter  from  Berlin,  having  ignominiously  col- 
lapsed, Gallenga  judged  that  it  was  time  to  return  to 
Printing  House  Square.  We  resolved,  however,  ere 
he  departed  to  make  a  trip  across  the  Sierra  Morena 
and  see  what  Seville,  Cordova,  and  Granada  were  like, 
and  we  purchased  tickets  entitling  us  to  occupy  a  coupe 
in  a  train  leaving  Madrid  for  the  South  the  next  morn- 
ing ;  but  that  self-same  afternoon  the  Times  recalled 
Gallenga  by  wire  ;  and  he  liberally  gave  me  his  ticket, 
by  means  of  which  I  made  the  first  part  of  the  journey 
in  great  comfort.  In  the  matter  of  travelling,  as  in- 
deed in  most  other  things,  the  Spaniards  are  a  pecu- 
liar race.  In  Germany  they  used  to  say  that  only 
crowned  heads,  Englishmen,  and  madmen  travelled 
first-class.  In  Spain,  in  my  time,  it  was  the  second- 
class  and  not  the  first  one  that  was  the  least  patron- 
ised. The  really  poor  used  the  third  -  class ;  but 
everybody  with  the  slightest  pretensions  to  gentility 
travelled  first ;  and  I  usually  found  the  first-class  car- 
riages inconveniently  crowded,  although  the  occu- 
pants thereof  frequently  look  as  though  their  circum- 
stances were  not  precisely  of  a  nature  to  warrant  their 
paying  first-class  fares. 

I  remember  a  typical  instance  of  an  entire  family  at 
a  wayside  station  entering  a  carriage  of  which  hitherto 


54  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

I  had  been  the  only  occupant.  There  were  appar- 
ently a  grandmother,  a  mother,  a  wife,  and  a  young 
lady  of  eighteen,  the  daughter,  perhaps,  of  an  ancient 
hidalgo  with  white  hair  and  moustache.  The  ladies 
were  not  precisely  in  rags,  but  they  were  desperately 
shabby  ;  as  for  the  caballero,  he  had  to  all  appearance 
selected  his  attire  from  one  of  the  old  clothes'  shops 
hard  by  the  Plaza  Mayor,  Such  a  shocking  bad  hat 
as  he  had,  I  have  rarely  beheld.  Stay !  there  was  a 
boy  about  eleven,  as  seedy  as  his  sire.  The  family 
brought  with  them  a  prodigious  assortment  of  bun- 
dles and  brown-paper  parcels  emitting  a  faint  and  not 
altogether  agreeable  odour.  These  they  were  carry- 
ing with  them  ;  no  doubt  for  the  purpose  of  not  hav- 
ing to  pay  for  the  conveyance  of  their  luggage,  the 
charges  for  which  in  Spain  are  very  high  ;  and  when  1 
meekly  protested  against  the  bundles  and  parcels 
being  scattered  all  over  the  carriage,  and  even  behind 
my  seat,  the  small  boy  rose,  and  addressing  me  as 
"  Ustcdr  the  conventional  abbreviation  of  "  Vuestra 
Merced^'  *'your  worship,"  proceeded  to  tell  me  in  a 
fluent  oration  that  I  ought  to  think  myself  honoured 
by  travelling  in  such  company.  Where  the  honour 
came  in  I  failed  to  see,  but  I  was  subsequently  consid- 
erably amused  by  the  transformation  which  took  place 
in  the  garb  of  my  travelling  companions  just  before  we 
reached  Madrid.  The  shocking  bad  hats,  the  greasy 
mantillas,  the  patched  and  faded  cloaks  gave  way  to 
quite  spruce  and  smart  garments ;  and  when  we 
reached  the  capital  I  found  two  stalwart  footmen  in 
handsome  liveries  waiting  for  the  family,  and  who, 
after  assisting  them  to  alight,  proceeded  to  gather  up 
all  the  bundles  and  parcels.  I  suppose  that  the  head 
of  the  house  was  a  Don  with  the  longest  of  pedigrees, 
and  I  hope  that  he  drove  a  coach-and-six,  and  was  the 
owner  of  a  palatial  mansion  in  the  Calle  del  Alcazar. 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  55 


My  experiences  in  travelling  from  Madrid  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  Sierra  Morena  were  widely  different 
and  not  on  the  whole  so  pleasant.  We  travelled  with- 
out any  incident  to  speak  of  throughout  the  night ; 
and  at  dawn  we  had  entered  the  province  of  La  Man- 
cha :  an  arid,  barren,  treeless  land,  swept  by  blasts  in 
winter  and  scorched  by  sun  in  summer  ;  but  imperish- 
ably  memorable  and  intensely  interesting  to  all  stu- 
dents of  Cervantes.  For  this  is  the  country  of  Don 
Quixote.  After  passing  the  gorge  of  Despenaperros 
we  came  to  a  little  rickety  village  called  Venta  de  Car- 
denas. The  "  Handbook  of  Spain,"  reminds  us  that, 
in  a  sierra  close  by,  the  Knight  of  the  Rueful  Counte- 
nance began  his  penance,  and  that  near  Torre  Nueva 
he  liberated  the  galley  slaves.  In  fact,  there  is  scarcely 
a  rood  of  ground  in  this  region  that  does  not  remind 
you  of  the  immortal  company  of  men  and  women 
made  palpable,  visible,  and  vascular  by  the  genius  of 
Don  Miguel  de  Cervantes  y  Saavedra. 

I  was  in  no  mood,  however,  to  dwell  upon  the  beau- 
ties of  Don  Quixote  that  February  morning ;  since,  at 
Venta  de  Cardenas,  the  train  for  Madrid  broke  down. 
La  Mancha  is  mainly  table-land,  and  is  said  to  be  two 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea  level  ;  but  although  ap- 
parently a  plain,  it  is  very  undulating,  and  in  the  dips 
an  occasional  streamlet  creates  something  like  ver- 
dure. The  great  want  of  the  region  is,  as  a  rule, 
water,  and  in  the  present  instance  Venta  de  Cardenas, 
like  poor  Ophelia  in  Hamlet,  had  too  much  water  ;  the 
streamlets  had  been  swollen  into  torrents,  rolling  down 
from  the  neighbouring  sierra,  and  the  country  for  miles 
and  miles  around  was  flooded  ;  so  we  were  forced  to 
leave  the  train  and  wait  until  the  waters  had  subsided. 
This  was  misery  number  one.  Misery  number  two  arose 
from  the  circumstance  that  there  was  nothing  to  eat  at 
the  Venta  de  Cardinas.     "  No  hay  nada  "  (there  is  noth- 


56  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


ing  whatever)  is  a  common  reply  to  any  questions  you 
may  ask  as  to  the  condition  of  the  larder  at  a  Spanish 
inn ;  save  and  except  only  at  the  time  of  puchero  or 
boiled  fresh  beef  garnished  with  garbanzos  or  chick 
peas,  and  sausages  highly  impregnated  with  garlic  : 
which  national  dish  is  usually  served  in  the  provinces 
at  noon.  It  was  seven  in  the  morning  when  our  break- 
down occurred ;  and  there  was  not  even  the  morning 
chocolate  and  bread  to  be  obtained.  1  had  had  noth- 
ing since  seven  on  the  preceding  evening,  and  was  des- 
perately hungry.  No  era  nada  !  There  was  positively 
nothing  to  eat ;  and  although  I  thoroughly  believe  that 
tobacco  allays  the  pangs  of  hunger,  even  a  confirmed 
smoker  does  not  care  about  smoking  more  than  three 
cierars  before  breakfast.  I  had  had  no  breakfast  at  all 
at  the  time  when  my  third  weed  had  been  consumed ; 
and  to  add  to  our  woes,  it  was  bruited  about  that  it 
was  extremely  uncertain  whether  the  quantity  of  pti- 
cJiero  available  would  sufihce  to  feed  even  a  third  of  the 
passengers.  Thus  famine-stricken  and  shivering  with 
cold,  the  dcsdicliados  ejected  from  the  water -logged 
train  were  grouped  on  the  summit  of  a  hill,  and  using, 
I  am  afraid,  in  many  instances  language  unfit  for  repe- 
tition in  polite  society. 

At  length  there  came  splashing  through  the  water 
from  the  south  of  the  Venta  a  diligencia  or  stage  coach 
draAvn  by  eight  mules.  There  had  evidently  been 
floods  in  another  part  of  the  district,  and  these  freshets 
had  stopped  another  train.  The  occupants  of  the  dili- 
gencia appeared  to  be  excellently  well  victualled  and 
were  munching  sausages,  bread  and  cheese,  and  cakes 
with  great  gusto.  In  particular,  I  took  note  of  a  stout- 
ish  gentleman  with  a  black  closely-clipped  moustache, 
who,  notwithstanding  the  plaid  ulster  which  he  wore, 
together  with  a  Glengarry  cap,  I  at  once  set  down  in 
mv   mind  as  a  French  commercial  traveller.     In  his 


ACROSS   THE   ATLANTIC  57 

right  hand  he  carried  a  black  bottle,  and  under  his  left 
arm  he  bore,  somewhat  ostentatiously  I  thought,  a 
long,  thick  loaf  of  bread  with  a  lovely  crust  to  it.  I 
went  up. to  him,  addressed  him  politely  in  the  French 
language,  told  him  that  I  had  had  nothing  to  eat  for 
fifteen  hours,  and  begged  him  to  let  me  have  for 
prompt  payment  a  portion  of  his  crusty  loaf.  He  re- 
plied very  brusquely  that  he  had  not  yet  had  his 
breakfast,  and  that  he  had  ample  use  for  the  provisions 
which  he  was  carrying.  Meanwhile,  1  was  measuring 
him  very  carefully  ;  and  observed  that  he  was  rotund 
of  stomach,  and  could,  if  occasion  demanded  it,  be 
easily  winded.  So  I  took  the  crusty  loaf  from  him  ; 
broke  it  in  half ;  gave  him  back  one  moiety — not  the 
larsfest  one — and  handed  him  at  the  same  time  a  silver 
dollar.  How  he  raged!  how  he  stormed!  what  oppro- 
brious names  he  called  me.  MalJwnnete  ! — excessivcmcnt 
malhonnete,  were  the  mildest  of  his  powers  of  eloquence. 
But  in  the  end  he  pocketed  the  affront  and  the  silver 
dollar  even  as  ancient  Pistol  pocketed  the  groat  that 
Llewellyn  gave  him  to  heal  his  cudgelled  pate  withal. 
We  abode  at  the  Venta  de  Cardenas  till  nightfall, 
but  gangs  of  navvies  had  been  despatched  both  from 
the  north  and  the  south ;  dams  had  been  thrown  up ; 
the  waters,  also,  were  subsiding  ;  and  after  travelling  a 
few  miles  in  mule  carts,  we  touched  dry  land  again, 
rejoined'  the  rail,  crossed  the  mountains,  and  found 
ourselves  in  the  lovely  city  of  Cordova.  I  had  already 
made  the  acquaintance  of  a  Cordova  in  Mexico ;  but 
the  Andalusian  Cordova  is  infinitely  more  interesting 
than  the  fourth-rate  Mexican  town.  No  more  winter 
after  you  have  crossed  the  Brown  Mountains.  It  was 
only  mid-February  ;  yet  we  were  in  the  midst  of  orange 
and  olive  groves  in  full  bloom.  We  found,  too,  a  really 
comfortable  Fonda  or  hotel,  which  was  positively  as 
clean  as  a  new  pin;  and  in  this  connection  let  me  say. 


58  ■  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


that  much  of  the  old  Mahometan  cleanliness  is  still  to 
be  found  in  Andalusia;  it  is  only  in  the  north  that  dirt 
reigns  with  almost  unrivalled  sway.  Seville  is  as  clean 
as  Cordova;  Cadiz  is  spotless;  I  saw  nothing  objec- 
tionable in  the  way  of  sanitation  at  Granada,  and  the 
only  really  dirty  town  that  I  have  lighted  upon  in  the 
south  of  Spain  is  Malaga. 

Naturally,  my  first  visit  was  to  the  famous  cathedral, 
which  was  anciently  an  Arab  mosque,  and  is  still  pop- 
ularly known  as  "  La  Mezquita  ;  "  just  as  at  Stamboul, 
even  the  Turks  will  sometimes  speak  of  the  largest  of 
their  mosques  as  "Santa  Sophia"  {Ao^ra  Sophia,  the 
Holy  Spirit— not  a  feminine  saint  as  the  Franks  usu- 
ally assume).  There  are  so  many  naves  and  transepts 
crossing  and  recrossing  each  other  in  this  astounding 
edifice  that  the  interior  has  been  called  a  forest  or 
lab3^rinth  of  pillars,  and  the  strangeness  of  the  sight  is 
enhanced  b}^  the  circumstance  that  the  columns  are  in 
no  way  uniform  or  of  the  same  length  ;  they  are  of 
jasper,  porphyry,  verd  antique,  and  other  precious 
marbles;  and  have  been  adjusted  to  fit  in  between  the 
arches  and  the  pavement  by  the  Procrustean  process 
of  either  sawing  off  a  portion  of  the  shafts  when  they 
were  too  long,  or  piecing  them  out  with  huge,  dispro- 
portioned  capitals. 

The  Carnival  was  in  full  swing  at  Cordova  ;  and  in 
a  peregrination  of  the  city  I  was  enabled  to  witness 
one  of  the  prettiest  Spanish  variants  of  that  festival,  in 
what  are  called  esciiclas  de  baile,  or  ambulatory  dancing 
schools.  One  sat  in  the  courtyard  of  the  Fonda,  or  in 
the  patio  of  some  friend's  house  ;  when  suddenly,  about 
eight  or  nine  in  the  evening,  there  would  come  the 
shining  apparition  of  a  bevy  of  children,  boys  and  girls, 
in  full  ballet  costume,  who  proceeded  to  execute,  with 
fairylike  grace  and  dexterity,  a  series  of  national 
dances,  such  as  the  cJiica,  the  fandango,  the  giiaraclnia, 


ACROSS    THE    ATLANTIC  59 

the  caronga,  the  trapola,  the  segiiidilla  manchega,  and 
the  zapatcado.  These  small  performers,  who  were 
under  the. guidance  of  a  wrinkled  old  gentleman  in  a 
cloak,  who  played  on  the  guitar  while  they  danced, 
never  asked  for  any  backshish  ;  but  if  you  slipped  a 
dollar  in  the  old  gentleman's  hand  he  did  not  refuse  it, 
and  incidentally  expressed  his  hope  that  you  might 
live  a  thousand  years. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  I  had  left  Cordova,  and 
gone  further  south,  to  Seville,  that  I  saw  the  Carnival 
in  its  full  glory.  The  enchanting  city  !  Over  and  over 
again  have  1  been  there  since  1865  ;  but  in  Seville,  as 
in  Rome,  you  discover  something  new  and  something 
delightful  every  time  you  revisit  the  town.  This 
work,  however,  does  not  profess  to  be  in  any  degree 
of  the  nature  of  a  guide-book  ;  and  for  that  reason  I 
will  not  say  anything  more  about  the  curiosities  of  the 
capital  of  Andalusia,  save  just  to  mention  that  on 
Shrove  Tuesday,  at  Vespers,  in  the  cathedral,  I  wit- 
nessed the  unique  spectacle  of  the  little  choristers 
dancing  before  the  Altar.  The  urchins  are  dressed 
up  in  slashed  doublets  and  trunk-hose,  with  ruffs  en- 
circling their  chubby  faces,  short  mantles,  and  little 
toy  rapiers  ;  and  at  a  given  stage  of  the  service,  they 
dance  a  slow  and  solemn  measure,  which  gradually 
quickens  into  quite  a  ]oyo\\%  fandango,  clacking,  mean- 
while, their  castanets.  Some  English  ladies  who  were 
with  me  began  to  cry  while  the  little  fellows  with  the 
ruffs  were  footing  it.  At  what  will  not  tender-hearted 
women  weep  ?  I  know  one  lady  who  always  sobs 
when  she  is  at  a  review,  and  witnesses  a  musical  ride 
of  the  Royal  Horse  Artillery.  I  intended  to  have 
gone  on  from  Seville  to  Granada  and  to  Malaga,  but 
Fate  said  no.  The  cruel  wire  brought  me,  one  morn- 
ing, a  despatch — the  usual  brief  despatch — running 
thus :    "  War   between    Italy    and   Austria   imminent. 


6o        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


Go  to  Venice."  So  I  retraced  my  steps,  and  bidding 
farewell  to  that  land  of  Spain  I  love  so  well,  I  made 
haste  to  reach  Paris,  and  went  down  to  Calais  to  meet 
my  wife,  with  whom  I  travelled  to  Italy  by  the  Mont 
Cenis  route. 


CHAPTER   XXXVI 

BELLA — HORRIDA   BELLA 

You  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  England,  who  live  at 
home  at  ease,  and  take,  it  may  be,  your  autumnal  holi- 
day on  the  Continent  in  August  or  in  September,  have 
little  idea  of  the  discomfort,  and  occasionally  the  dan- 
ger, of  a  journey  from  France  to  Italy  thirty  years 
ago.  We  chose  the  Mont  Cenis  route — the  pass,  you 
will  remember,  selected  by  Horace  Walpole,  who, 
while  crossing  it,  had  the  misfortune  to  see  his  little 
lap-dog  run  away  with  by  a  wolf.  In  these  days  the 
tourist  is  conveyed  swiftly,  securely,  and  comfortably 
in  a  saloon  carriage,  with  very  probably  a  restaurant- 
car  attached  to  it,  through  that  extraordinary  monu- 
ment of  engineering  skill,  the  Mont  Cenis  tunnel :  the 
run  from  Savoy  into  Piedmont  lasting  less  than  five- 
and-twenty  minutes;  but  in  1865  you  had  to  crawl 
from  Lans-le-bourg  to  Susa  in  a  diligence  drawn  by 
fourteen  or  sixteen  mules. 

The  road  was  a  very  fine  one,  constructed  between 
i8q2  and  181 1  by  that  great  benefactor  and  scourge 
of  the  human  race.  Napoleon  I.  At  the  culminating 
point,  some  ten  thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
sea,  there  was  a  tolerable  hotel,  where  you  could  get 
delicious  lake  trout  and  remarkably  good  cheese  ;  but 
it  was  the  length  of  time  consumed  in  the  lagging  dili- 
gence, and  the  horrible  jolting  and  creaking  of  the 
machine  itself  that  reduced  you  to  a  condition  ap- 
proaching despair.  It  was  more  amusing  crossing  the 
mountain    in    winter   time  ;    when    the    diligence    was 


62  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


placed  on  a  sledge.     Then  came  the  Fell  railway  over 
the  mountain,  which  did  its  work  very  well,  although 
you  usually  emerged  from  your  railway  compartment 
as  black  as  a  sweep,  from  the  smoke  of  the  locomotive. 
I  had  already  been  to  Venice,  in  the  early  days  of 
All  the  Year  Round,  but  the  City  of  the  Sea  was  new  to 
my  wife,  and  the  place  gave  her  never-ending  pleasure. 
It  was  during  this,  my  second  visit,  to  the  Queen  of 
the  Adriatic,  that  I  witnessed  a  very  curious  encoun- 
ter between  a  crab  and  a  rat,  a  description  of  wdiich  I 
gave  to  my  friend,  the  late  Frank  Buckland,  the  nat- 
uralist.    The  battle  of  which  I  speak  came  off  in  this 
wise.     We  were  staying  at  the  Hotel  Victoria,  a  very 
comfortable   house,    on  a   canal    branching    from    the 
Canalazzo.     It  was  a  late  spring  afternoon  ;  the  tide 
was  out ;  and  at  that  time  of  the  day  the  side  canals 
of  Venice  do  not  smell  very  sweetly.      I   happened, 
however,  to  be  looking  from  my  window,  when  I  be- 
came aware  of  a  large   water-rat,  nearly  as  large,   I 
should  say,  as  my  old  friend,  Marshal  Bllicher,  at  Up- 
ton  Court,  who — pardon  the  misuse  of  the  personal 
pronoun — was,  to  all  appearance,  going  out  to  tea — 
that  is  to  say,  he  was  running  swiftly  along  the  stone 
ledge  of  the  basement  of  a  palace  opposite,  and  was 
obviously  on  pleasure  bent.      On  his  way  he    met  a 
crab — a  line  spiky  fellow,  who  had  been  washed  up  on 
to  the  ledge,  and  was  thinking   of  tumbling  himself 
into  the  water  again.     But  it  apparently  occurred  to 
the   rat   that    undressed    crab    would    be   a  very  nice 
dainty  at  the  tea  party  to  which  he  was  bound  and  he 
forthwith  attacked  the  crustacean.     "  Oh  Lord  !  "  the 
Yankee  bear-hunter  is  said  to  have  exclaimed,  when 
he  came  in  contact  with  the  animal.     "  Don't  you  help 
the  b'ar,  and  don't  you  help  me  ;  but  just  stand  clear, 
and  you'll  see  the  biggest  b'ar  fight  that  ever  was." 
Persons  of  sporting  proclivities  should  have  seen  that 


BELLA — HORRIDA   BELLA  6^ 

fight  between  the  crab  and  the  rat.  The  rat's  policy 
was  to  turn  the  crab  over  on  his  back  ;  but  the  crus- 
tacean so  firmly  gripped  the  rodent  in  his  claws  that 
he  won  the  victory,  and  tumbled  over  with  his  captive 
into  the  canal.  Possibly  his  brother  crabs  had  a  high 
old  time  of  it  that  evening  on  marinated  rat. 

I  have  often  seen  the  smile  of  incredulitj'  rise  on  the 
lips  of  my  friends  when  I  have  told  this  story  ;  but 
Frank  Buckland  told  me  that  there  was  nothing  phe- 
nomenal in  the  encounter,  and  that  it  was  quite  within 
the  margin  of  probability  that  the  crab  should  win  the 
fight.  All  I  know  is,  that  I  saw  the  rat  and  the  crab, 
last  locked  in  an  inimical  embrace,  disappear  in  the 
waters  of  the  Adriatic.  We  only  remained  a  short  time 
in  Venice.  A  further  despatch  bade  me  go  to  Vienna  ; 
so  we  crossed  to  Trieste,  where  there  was  a  horrible 
north  wind,  called  the  dora,  blowing.  "  It  is  so  strong, 
sir,"  remarked  the  affable  cashier  of  the  banker  on 
whom  I  had  a  letter  of  credit,  "  that  you  might  place 
your  hat  and  stick  on  that  wind  and  accept  half-a-dozen 
bills  on  it  without  any  of  the  objects  reaching  the 
ground."  We  reached  Vienna  b}'  that  extraordinary 
railway  over  the  Semmering,*the  "  corkscrew  "  railwa)-, 
as  it  has  been  called,  and  the  only  one  in  Europe — ac- 
cording to  a  facetious  engineer — on  which  the  traveller 
can  see  the  back  of'his  own  neck,  so  continually  wind- 
ing is  the  line.  There  is  a  railway  closely  resembling 
the  Semmering  between  Sydney  and  the  Blue  Moun- 
tains of  New  South  Wales. 

It  was  early  in  May  when  we  arrived  in  the  Kaiser- 
stadt,  and  alighted  at  that  comfortable  hotel,  the 
"  Archduke  Charles,"  in  the  Karnthner-Strasse.  I  had 
a  letter  from  the  Foreign  Office  to  Lord  Blomfield, 
Her  Britannic  Majesty's  Ambassador  at  the  Court  of 
Vienna,  and  experienced  the  usual  diplomatic  kindness 
and  hospitality.     Vienna  was  in  a  tremendous  state  of 


64  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 


excitement,  a  rupture  between  Austria  and  Italy  being 
expected  every  day.  The  excitement  took  a  religious 
as  well  as  a  political  aspect.  There  were  pilgrimages 
to  the  shrine  of  Maria  Hilf,  and  the  devotional  agita- 
tion of  the  masses  culminated  on  the  Feast  of  Corpus 
Christi— a  glittering  pageant,  to  witness  the  passing  of 
which  a  friend  obligingly  procured  for  us  a  window  in 
a  house  in  the  Graben.  I  saw  His  Imperial,  Royal, 
and  Apostolic  Majesty,  the  Kaiser  Francis  Joseph, 
walking  in  the  procession,  with  a  bevy  of  Archdukes, 
just  before  the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Vienna,  who 
bore  the  Pyx,  with  the  Host,  under  a  sumptuous 
canopy. 

Again  did  I  behold  the  Kaiser,  in  the  garden  of 
Schonbrunn,  whither  we  had  repaired  to  see  the  Palace 
picture  gallery,  and  the  room  in  which  the  poor  young 
Duke  of  Reichstadt,  the  only  son  of  Napoleon  the 
Great,  breathed  his  last.  The  Emperor  drove  up  to 
the  great  door  of  the  Schloss  in  a  light  victoria,  accom- 
panied only  by  a  single  aide-de-camp,  and  without  any 
escort.  He  was  in  the  white-and-gold  uniform,  and 
crimson  trousers,  with  plumed  cocked  hat,  of  an  Aus- 
trian Field-Marshal,  and  that  uniform  is,  to  my  mind, 
the  handsomest  and  tastefullest  in  the  whole  world, 
excepting  always  that  of  our  own  Household  Brigade. 
Francis  Joseph,  in  May,  1866,  could  not  have  been 
more  than  six-and-thirty  years  of  age  ;  but  not  often 
have  I  seen  a  countenance  of  a  comparatively  young 
and  good-looking  gentleman  so  deeply  marked  by  an 
expression  of  sadness  and  anxiety  as  that  which  ap- 
peared in  the  lineaments  of  the  Emperor  that  day  at 
Schonbrunn. 

All  the  walls  and  all  the  cafds  of  Vienna  were  pla- 
carded with  appeals  to  the  patriotism  of  the  subjects  of 
Kaiser  Franz  Josef.  "  Das  Vaterland  Riift,''  was  the 
heading  of  these  posters ;  but  I  had  got  my  travelling 


BELLA — HORRIDA   BELLA  6$ 


instructions  by  telegraph,  and  made  as  much  haste  to 
get  out  of  the  Kaiserstadt  as  ever  I  possibly  could. 
We  came  down  again  b}^  the  Semmering  to  Trieste, 
and  took  the  Austrian  Lloyd  steamer  late  at  night  for 
Venice,  reaching  the  Lido  at  daybreak. 

Very  many  are  the  aspects  under  which  I  have  be- 
held the  beautiful  city.  You  know  there  are  at  least 
half-a-dozen  notable  painters,  each  of  whom  has  his  own 
particular  Venice — I  mean  his  own  peculiar  way  of 
treating  the  city,  chromatically.  Canaletto's  is  an 
eighteenth-century,  matter-of-fact,  surprisingly  faith- 
ful, but  somewhat  prosaic,  Venice.  So  is  that  of  his 
almost  compeer,  Guardi.  Among  English  painters, 
Holland  made  us  familiar  with  a  V^enice  soberly  rich 
in  colour.  Cooke,  the  Royal  Academician's  Venice  was 
full  of  atmosphere,  but  rather  frigid.  Clarkson  Stan- 
field's  Venice  was  breezy  and  cheerful ;  but  Turner's 
was,  and  always  will  be,  the  Venice  after  my  own 
heart,  although  he  gave  on  canvas  a  scheme  of  colour 
applied  to  Venetian  pictures  en  permanence ;  whereas, 
in  reality,  the  Turneresque  Venice  only  fascinates  your 
sense  at  certain  periods,  usually  in  April  and  May.  It 
was  into  the  Canalazzo  of  Turner's  Venice  that  the 
Austrian  Lloyd  steamed  on  a  golden  May  morning. 
The  city  presented,  as  we  neared  it,  a  rainbow  appear- 
ance. The  Ducal  Palace,  the  Piazza  San  Marco,  the 
Molo,  the  Zecca,  the  Basilica — all  so  many  "  harmonies  " 
in  pink,  and  blue,  and  gold,  and  white,  seemed  to  dance 
in  the  water.  When  you  landed  you  were  welcomed 
as  usual  by  the  pigeons  that  haunt  the  domes  and  but- 
tresses of  the  cathedral ;  on  the  broad  bosom  of  the 
Grand  Canal,  the  sable  gondolas  flitted  hither  and 
thither,  or  emerged  from  the  minor  canals,  the  gon- 
doliers uttering  their  customary — and,  to  the  stranger's 
ear  — •  incomprehensible  cry.  That  evening,  on  St. 
Mark's  Place,  there  was  the  customary  popular  gather- 
II.— 5 


66  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

ing  to  hear  the  Austrian  military  band  play  ;  and  the 
officers,  in  their  white  tunics,  sauntered  up  and  down, 
ogling  the  grisettes  and  such  foreign  ladies  of  comely 
mien  as  were  present;  but  the  upper  classes  kept 
sulkily  aloof  from  the  Piazza  ;  the  Venetian  ladies  rarely 
left  their  palaces,  and  when  they  did  venture  abroad 
were  invariably  habited  in  mourning ;  and  the  great 
Opera  House,  La  Fenice,  had  been  closed  for  years  ; 
notwithstanding  the  offer  of  a  liberal  subvention  on 
the  part  of  the  Austrian  Government.  Patrician 
Venice,  educated  Venice,  cultured  Venice,  would  have 
nought  to  do  with  the  loathed  Tedeschi. 

The  next  day  war  was  declared  between  Austria 
and  Italy  ;  but  three  days'  grace  were  allowed  to  all 
foreigners  who  wished  to  leave  the  Dominio  Veneto. 
My  people  in  Fleet  Street  had  telegraphed  me: 
"Garibaldi  in  the  Tyrol  in  force;  join  him.  Letters 
to  him  waiting  Milan."  Not  an  instant  was  to  be  lost. 
I  conjectured  that  the  expedition  would  be  a  some- 
what hazardous  one  ;  so  I  could  not  take  my  wife 
with  me.  The  manager  of  the  Albergo  Victoria,  Mr. 
Robert  Etzensberger,  a  highly  intelligent  German- 
Swiss,  kindly  undertook  to  see  after  m}^  wife,  and 
provide  her,  if  needful,  with  funds,  should  her  sup- 
plies run  ovit ;  for  on  the  morrow  Venice  was  to  be 
placed  in  a  state  of  siege.  Then  I  betook  myself  to 
the  British  Consul-General,  Mr.  Perry,  the  brother  of 
a  well-known  English  judge,  Sir  Erskine  Perry,  and  a 
grandson,  I  believe,  of  the  celebrated  journalist,  Perry, 
of  the  Morning  CJironicle.  The  Consul-General  told 
me  that  my  wife  should  have  every  assistance  in  case 
of  need,  and  that  although  she  would  be  the  only  Eng- 
lish lady  left  in  the  besieged  city,  there  was  no  reason 
to  think  that  any  disturbances  would  take  place,  the 
Austrian  garrison  being  formidably  strong. 

It  was  as  well,  however,  Mr.   Perry  added,  to   be 


BELLA— HORRIDA  BELLA  67 

careful ;  and  the  need  for  caution  had  also  struck  the 
Ottoman  Consul,  who  had  incited  his  Government  to 
send  up  a  Turkish  corvette  to  the  Lido,  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  good  old  monks  of  the  island  convent  at 
San  Lazzaro,  who  are  Turkish  subjects.  How  often 
have  I  been  rowed  out  to  the  island  to  converse  with 
the  excellent  friars  ! — who  are  still  as  proud  as  ever 
of  the  visit  paid  to  them  by  Byron,  and  who  make  a 
modest  revenue  by  selling  strangers  a  curious  product 
of  their  printing  press,  the  prayers  of  St.  Narses  in 
thirty-seven  languages. 

It  was  not  with  the  lightest  of  hearts  that  I  left  my 
only  treasure  in  the  world  in  a  foreign  city,  and  took 
the  train  which,  on  a  long  causeway,  crosses  the  la- 
goon to  Mestre,  whence  I  hastened  to  Padua.  That 
city  the  Austrians  were  holding,  and  they  were  also  in 
strong  force  at  Verona ;  but  they  had  evacuated  Vi- 
cenza,  which  city  had  at  once  been  imbandierata,  or 
hung  with  banners  bearing  the  national  Italian  colours, 
by  the  exulting  inhabitants.  Presently  I  reached 
Verona ;  and,  after  considerable  trouble,  obtained 
from  the  military  authorities  a  permit  to  cross  the 
frontier  at  Peschiera.  The  railway  had  been  monopo- 
lised for  military  purposes ;  so  that  we  were  fain  to 
make  the  journey  to  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Garda 
by  diligence.  At  Milan  I  found  letters  to  General 
Garibaldi,  to  several  members  of  his  staff,  and  to  Mrs. 
Chambers,  who,  with  her  husband.  Colonel  Chambers, 
were  warm  and  generous  friends  of  the  Hero  in  the 
Red  Shirt.  Also,  in  the  city  of  the  Duomo,  did  I  find 
several  of  my  brother  special  correspondents,  among 
whom  I  may  mention  Mr.  George  Henty,  then,  as  now, 
a  member  of  the  staff  of  the  Standard  newspaper  ;  Mr, 
Bullock,  who  represented  the  Daily  Ncivs ;  and  Mr. 
Henry  Hyndman,  who  had  come  out  in  the  interest 
of  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


68  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

In  1866,  Mr.  Hyndman  was  about  as  brilliant  a 
young  gentleman  as  I  have  ever  met  with  ;  an  Oxo- 
nian, a  noted  cricketer,  somewhat  giv^en  to  sporting, 
full  of  life  and  gaiety,  a  ripe  scholar,  and  some  hopes 
of  being  able,  at  no  distant  period,  to  formulate  a  Uni- 
versal Theorem  ;  and,  finally,  a  staunch  Tory.  I  very 
rarely  see  him  now.  I  am  told  that  he  is  the  same 
Mr.  Henry  Hyndman  who  has  achieved  considerable 
notoriety  as  a  Social  Democrat,  and  mixes  himself  up 
with  people  whom  persons  of  culture  would,  I  should 
say,  be  as  a  rule  somewhat  chary  of  associating  with. 
But  stay  ;  Mr.  William  Morris,  decorator,  poet,  and 
translator  of  the  Odyssey,  is  likewise,  I  am  told,  a 
Social  Democrat ;  and  I  must  not  talk  politics.  I  have 
long  ceased  to  have  any  of  my  own.  But  whether  my 
old  friend  Henry  M.  Hyndman  be  a  Conservative  or  a 
Radical,  a  Legitimist,  an  Imperialist,  or  a  Bonapartist, 
a  Know-nothing,  a  Copper-head,  a  Protectionist,  a 
Free-trader,  a  Young  Czech,  or  an  Old  Czech,  a  Cler- 
ical or  a  Liberal,  a  Chauvinist  or  an  Anti-Semite,  I  am 
convinced  that  he  can  never  be  anything  else  than  the 
genial  and  high-minded  English  gentleman  that  he 
was  in  1866. 

Milan  was  in  a  ferment ;  the  newspapers  teemed 
with  patriotic  leading  articles  ;  the  music-sellers  were 
selling  thousands  of  copies  of  a  specially  composed 
martial  h3^mn  called  the  "  Grida  di  Guerra,"  and  "  Ga- 
ribaldi's Hymn,"  and  another  stirring  melody,  "  Va 
Fuori  d'  Italia,  Straniero,"  were  ground  on  every  street 
organ.  A  grand  performance  was  given  at  the  Scala, 
in  aid  of  a  fund  for  the  benefit  of  the  Italian  wounded. 
The  last  time  that  I  had  been  in  that  superb  Opera 
House  was  in  1859,  j^^st  before  the  war  between  France, 
Italy,  and  Austria,  which  terminated  in  the  evacuation 
of  the  whole  of  Lombardy  by  the  last-named  Power. 
The  Milanese  could  not  bring  themselves  to  dispense 


BELLA — HORRIDA   BELLA  69 

with  the  Scala,  as  Venetians  had  dispensed  with  the 
Fenice ;  but  they  partially  consoled  themselves  for 
their  subjugation  by  the  TcdescJii,  by  whistling  and 
cat-calling  all  the  singers  and  all  the  dancers  who  were 
applauded  by  the  Austrian  officers  in  the  stalls  ;  while 
at  the  close  of  the  performance  there  was  usually  a 
shout  from  the  pit  of  "  'Viva  Verdi !  "  which  was  a 
covert  way  of  acclaiming  "  Vittorio  Emmanuele  Re 
d'  Italia,"  the  first  "V"  standing  for  "Viva,"  and 
"  V,  E,  R,  D,  I "  for  the  remaining  letters. 

At  the  outset  of  this  Autobiography  I  mentioned 
there  were  three  distinct  branches  of  my  family  in 
Italy,  and  that  I  was  a  humble  scion  of  the  Roman 
branch.  I  am  somewhat  glad  to  have  set  forth  the 
fact,  since  I  found  in  ISIilan  no  less  than  three  Salas, 
none  of  whom  were  members  of  the  Brahminical 
classes.  There  was  a  Sala  who  was  a  baker ;  while 
another  followed  the  useful,  but  plebeian  calling  of  a 
tinsmith  ;  the  third,  I  think,  was  a  carriage-builder, 
and  was  rich,  which  slightly  increased  my  respect  for 
him,  and  I  should  have  liked  to  claim  him  as  a  brother 
Roman.  When  I  got  down  to  Como,  on  my  way  to 
join  Garibaldi  in  the  Tyrol,  I  found  yet  another  Sala, 
a  lady,  whose  Christian  name  was  Catei'ina,  and  who 
sold  sausages  and  tripe.  I  do  hope  that  the  worthy 
lady  did  not  belong  to  the  Roman  branch. 


CHAPTER    XXXVII 

WITH    GARIBALDI   IN   THE   TYROL 

I  FOUND  Garibaldi  in  a  miserable  town  somewhere  in 
the  Northern  Tyrol ;  his  army  of  red-shirts  had  eaten 
and  drunk  up  everything  that  was  edible  or  potable  ; 
and  the  solitary  caffe  of  the  place  bore  an  announce- 
ment over  the  door  that  it  was  closed  ^^ per  mancansa 
di  tutto  " — for  want  of  everything.  I  suppose  that 
there  was  never  an  army  in  the  field,  except,  perhaps, 
in  some  South  American  Republic,  so  sorrily  supplied 
as  was  Garibaldi's  host  of  caviicie  rosse.  There  was 
some  kind  of  commissariat ;  but  the  provend  was  ir- 
regular and  insufficient,  for  the  reason  that  the  com- 
missaries were  unable  to  procure  the  provisions  they 
wanted.  The  red-shirts  were  brave  enough,  and  were 
leavened  to  some  extent  by  veterans  who  had  formed 
part  of  the  Thousand  of  Marsala,  who,  under  their 
heroic  leader,  captured  the  Two  Sicilies  ;  but  the  mass 
of  the  Garibaldini  were  raw  youths,  patriotic  clerks, 
and  shop  assistants,  who  scarcely  knew  their  drill. 
They  did  not  plunder ;  and  besides,  as  you  may  sur- 
mise, immediately  war  was  declared  all  the  available 
poultry  seemed  instinctively  to  hide  themselves  in  re- 
mote holes  and  corners,  undiscoverable  by  marauding 
parties. 

Such  looting  as  did  take  place  was  probably  more 
among  the  officers  than  the  rank  and  file ;  since  I  re- 
member a  Marquis,  commanding  a  body  of  mounted 
Garibaldini,  sending  me  a  note  in  which,  with  his 
compliments,  he  stated  that  he  had  got  some  friends  to 


WITH   GARIBALDI   IN   THE   TYROL  7 1 

dinner.  A  salad  was  to  be  included  in  the  repast,  and 
could  I  lend  him  an  egg  ?  He  added  in  a  postscript 
that  he  hoped  to  be  soon  able  to  reciprocate  my  cour- 
tesy ;  as,  this  being  Tuesday,  he  had  every  reason 
to  believe  that  his  servant  would  be  able  to  steal  a 
chicken  by  Sunday,  at  the  latest.  The  idea  of  the 
faithful  orderly  laying  siege,  and  opening  the  trenches, 
and  storminor  the  citadel  in  which  the  fowl  was  en- 
sconced  was  mirthful. 

I  had  a  long  interview  with  Garibaldi  on  the  after- 
noon of  my  arrival  at  headquarters.  He  received  me 
in  the  friendliest  manner ;  and  told  me  that  there  was 
not  the  slightest  need  for  me  to  have  brought  a  letter 
of  introduction  to  him,  as  he  was  well  aware  that  the 
newspaper  which  I  represented  had  always  been  a  firm 
friend  of  Italy.  He  added  that  he  would  do  what  he 
could  for  my  colleagues  and  myself,  but  that  he  was 
very  badly  off  for  stores  and  for  munitions  of  war;  in 
fact,  he  said  with  a  smile,  he  was  almost  in  the  same  posi- 
tion as  the  proprietor  of  the  caffc,  who  had  been  fain 
to  close  his  establishment  in  consequence  of  a  "  nian- 
cama  di  tiitto!'  I  could  not  help  reading  between  the 
lines  as  he  spoke  ;  and  fancying  that  he  was  somewhat 
sore  at  what  he  considered  to  be  either  the  indifference 
or  the  animosity  of  the  Italian  military  authorities  to 
the  irregular  force  which  he  commanded. 

There  are  innumerable  portraits,  busts,  and  statu- 
ettes extant  of  Giuseppe  Garibaldi ;  and  it  would  be 
wholly  useless,  not  to  say  impertinent,  to  give  a  de- 
tailed description  of  this  heroic  man.  Still,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  he  has  been  dead  twelve  years ; 
that  the  public  memory  is  fleeting;  and  that  the 
young  British  adolescent,  fresh  from  school  or  col- 
lege, was  a  small  boy  when  Garibaldi  died.  He  was 
verging  on  sixty  years  of  age  when  I  first  beheld 
him.     Of  middle  height ;  somewhat  spare,  moderately 


'J2  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

full  short  beard  and  moustache  ;  hair  still  auburn 
although  beginning  to  be  flecked  with  grey,  and  a 
wonderfully  lucid  blue  eye.  He  was  clad  in  the 
camicia  rossa,  or  red  woollen  shirt,  which  is  so  closely 
associated  with  himself  and  the  brave  fellows  he  led  ; 
and  in  connection  with  this  historic  garment,  it  may 
be  mentioned  that  this  red  shirt  was  simply  the  ar- 
ticle of  attire  worn  at  that  period  in  the  American  mer- 
chant service.  Garibaldi  had  followed  a  great  many 
callinafs  while  he  was  in  the  United  States.  Among: 
other  things,  he  was  foreman  to,  if  not  in  partnership 
with,  an  Italian  manufacturer  of  soap  and  candles  at 
Staten  Island,  New  York ;  and  early  in  the  'lifties  he 
was  a  skipper  of  a  vessel  trading  between  Philadelphia 
and  Genoa.  It  is  a  matter  of  history  that  the  authori- 
ties of  the  last-named  seaport  forbade  him  to  cast 
anchor  in  the  harbour,  and  sent  him  away,  packing. 
A  soldier,  a  sailor,  and  a  patriot,  one  quality  was  cer- 
tainly lacking  in  Giuseppe  Garibaldi — there  was  noth- 
ing of  the  statesman,  in  the  Machiavellian  or  Talley- 
rand sense,  about  him.  He  could  not  tell  lies ;  he 
knew  not  how  to  negotiate,  to  cog,  to  finesse,  or  to 
cajole.  His  own  convictions  were  unswervingly  Re- 
publican ;  but,  recognising  the  fact  that  Italy  was  in 
the  main  monarchical,  and  that  the  country  yearned 
to  be  united  under  the  constitutional  sway  of  a  Prince 
of  the  House  of  Savoy,  he  cheerfully  yielded  to  the 
general  wish  of  his  countrymen  ;  and  after  his  magic- 
all}^  swift  conquest  of  Naples  and  Sicily,  he  quietly 
handed  them  over  to  Victor  Emmanuel  II.,  whom  he 
knew  to  be  as  courageous  and  as  truthful  as  he  was  : 
and  on  his  way  to  attack  the  fortress  of  Gaeta,  the  last 
stronghold  of  the  Neapolitan  Bourbons,  he  hailed  the 
King  of  Sardinia  as  King  of  Italy.  Practically,  it  was 
by  Giuseppe  Garibaldi  that  the  "  Re  galantiionio  "  was 
crowned. 


WITH   GARIBALDI   IN   THE   TYROL  73 


It  is  amusing  to  remember  an  anecdote  told  me  by 
one  of  Garibaldi's  secretaries,  M.  PlantuUi,  touching 
Garibaldi's  uniform  as  a  General  in  the  regular  Italian 
army.  The  uniform  itself  is  a  very  handsome  one,  in- 
cludinof  larofe  o-old  epaulettes  of  loose  bullion  strands. 
This  imposing  costume,  together  with  a  plumed 
cocked  hat,  General  Garibaldi  wore  only  on  two  oc- 
casions. He  donned  it  when  he  boarded  a  British 
man-of-war  to  tender  thanks  to  the  Admiral,  who  had 
protected  the  landing  of  the  Thousand  at  Marsala. 
He  wore  the  uniform  again  at  his  interview  with  Vic- 
tor Emmanuel,  after  the  conquest  of  the  Two  Sicilies  ; 
but  when  he  returned  to  his  island  home  at  Caprera, 
it  is  a  comical  fact  that  he  presented  his  General's 
much-gold-laced  panoply  to  his  cowherd,  who  gravely 
drove  cattle  about  the  fields  of  Caprera  in  this  gor- 
geous martial  panoply.  Exposure  to  wind  and  rain 
and  a  scorching  summer  sun  very  soon  reduced  the 
stately  garb  to  a  lamentable  state  of  tarnished  seedi- 
ness ;  and  the  cowherd,  who  preferred  freedom  of  ac- 
tion to  being  tightly  buttoned  up,  always  wore  the 
coat  open,  so  as  to  display  a  coarse  canvas  shirt,  with 
a  red  woollen  sash  round  the  waist.  It  was  the  de- 
light of  Garibaldi  and  his  friends,  when  they  met  this 
cowherd,  gravely  to  salute  him  in  military  fashion, 
and  acclaim  him  as  "  inio  Gcncrald' 

Menotti  Garibaldi,  the  General's  eldest  son,  was  not 
with  us  at  the  outset  of  the  campaign  ;  but  his  younger 
brother,  Ricciotti,  was  serving  as  a  private  in  one  of 
the  regiments  of  red-shirts.  Two  English  ladies  were 
also  in  our  company,  and  eventually  did  much  Sama- 
ritan service  to  the  Garibaldini.  First,  there  was  Mrs. 
Chambers,  who  had  come  out  with  her  husband,  Col- 
onel Chambers,  to  look  after  Garibaldi's  personal  com- 
fort and  see  that  he  was  \vell  provided  with  pocket- 
money.     It  was  the  singular  lot  of  this  singular  man 


74  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 

to  be  platonicallj  loved  and  cherished  by  a  noble 
gathering  of  English  ladies,  who  seemed  to  regard 
him  as  a  Fighting  Brother  who  must  be  taken  care  of. 
His  life  was  as  pure  as  the  cause  for  which  he  fought, 
and  the  voice  of  calumny  was  never  for  an  instant 
raised  against  the  devoted  Englishwomen  who  tended 
him  with  love  and  devotion.  Another  of  his  lady- 
adherents  was  Madame  Jessie  Merriton  White  Mario, 
whom  I  remembered  as  having  been,  in  her  unmarried 
days,  a  sedulous  student  in  the  reading-room  of  the 
British  Museum,  but  who  in  1866  had  become  the  wife 
of  an  Italian  gentleman  and  friend  of  Garibaldi. 

I  have  said  that  he  was  no  statesman ;  he  was  too 
blunt  and  too  simple-minded  to  practise  any  of  the  de- 
vices of  statecraft.  Although  the  co-operation  of  Na- 
poleon III.  had  enabled  the  Italians  to  wrest  Lom- 
bardy  from  the  Austrians,  he  never  forgave  him  for 
not  redeeming  his  promise  to  emancipate  Italy  from 
the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic.  He  always  alluded  to  the 
Emperor  as  "  cc  Monsieur  ;  "  and  disdainfully  spoke  of 
the  cession  to  France  of  Nice  and  Savoy  as  a  "  mer- 
chnonio " — a  vile,  illicit,  and  contraband  transaction. 
Our  brief  campaign  was  not  a  very  glorious  one.  We 
were  badly  off  for  a  field-train,  and  it  was  difficult  to 
procure  mules  to  drag  the  few  movm tain-howitzers 
that  had  been  doled  out  to  Garibaldi  by  the  Italian 
Government,  Expert  marksmen  did  not  abound  in 
the  ranks  of  the  Garibaldini  ;  whereas  the  Austrians 
had  a  plentiful  supply  of  Tyrolese  sharpshooters,  who 
could  be  seen  through  our  field-glasses  systematically 
"  potting "  the  red-shirts  at  long  range ;  while  ser- 
geants and  corporals  stood  behind  to  score  the  results 
of  each  volley. 

As  to  the  special  correspondents,  their  means  of 
locomotion  were  various  and  the  reverse  of  comfort- 
able.    Sometimes  we  managed  to  hire  a  light  carriage 


WITH   GARIBALDI   IN   THE   TYROL  75 

for  a  few  days  ;  sometimes  we  got  about  on  mule  or 
donkey-back  ;  and  sometimes  we  were  forced  to  walk. 
Dr.  Maginn  once  observed  that  for  duelling  purposes, 
any  one  might  be  considered  a  gentleman  who  wore  a 
clean  shirt  once  a  week,  1  am  afraid  that  during  the 
Garibaldian  campaign  I  entirely  lost  the  qualification 
of  a  gentleman  in  respect  to  duelling.  One  of  my  col- 
leagues had  been  fortunate  enough  to  purchase  a  rick- 
ety little  open  shandrydan,  drawn  by  two  miserable 
screws,  one  of  which  he  christened  Homer  because  he 
was  blind,  and  another  General  La  Marmora  because 
he  manifested  a  chronic  disinclination  to  advance.  At 
night-time  these  lamentable  Rosinantes  were  tethered 
to  some  convenient  underwood  ;  and  then,  my  col- 
league, having  carefully  arranged  the  harness  under 
the  carriage,  placed  over  it  a  waterproof-sheet  and 
slept  the  sleep  of  the  just;  at  least,  he  knew  that  the 
harness  would  not  be  stolen ;  and  as  for  the  screws 
they  were  scarcely  worth  stealing.  The  weather — it 
was  now  June  —  was  delightful  —  not  too  hot  during 
the  day,  and  not  too  cool  at  night ;  and  as  most  of 
the  journalists  were  young  and  strong,  it  was  rather 
diverting  than  otherwise  to  have  to  rough  it.  There 
was  little  to  eat  beyond  some  dreadfully  distasteful 
and  hard  meat,  which  purported  to  be  salt  beef,  but 
which  I  am  the  rather  inclined  to  believe  was  salt 
horse,  together  with  some  mouldy  biscuits;  but  one  of 
us  had  laid  in  a  good  store  of  chocolate  in  tablets  at 
Milan ;  and  chocolate,  when  savoury  provisions  run 
short,  is  a  capital  stay  or  hold-fast. 

Garibaldi  was  the  most  abstemious  of  mankind  ;  still 
he  could,  on  occasion,  be  festive  ;  and  by  the  camp 
fire  at  night  I  have  seen  him  smoke  his  little  Cavour 
cigar  and  sing  his  little  song.  Of  his  utter  unworldli- 
ness,  his  singleness  of  mind,  and  his  childlike  belief 
that  a  large  proportion  of  mankind  were  as  virtuous  as 


76  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

he  was,  I  remember,  a  striking  illustration  in  a  remark 
which  he  made  when  someone  in  a  mixed  company  at 
the  bivouac  was  dwelling  on  the  necessity  of  reforming 
the  Italian  Criminal  Code.  "  I  would  reform  the  code," 
observed  Garibaldi,  "  and  the  codes  of  all  other  nations 
into  the  bargain,  with  this  scatola  of  zolfanclli;"  and 
as  he  spoke  he  held  a  box  of  lucifer  matches.  Most 
marked,  indeed,  was  the  difference  as  a  politician  be- 
tween Giuseppe  Garibaldi  and  another  of  his  contem- 
poraries, as  patriotic,  as  devoted,  and  as  upright  as  he, 
I  mean  Daniel  Manin,  the  chief  of  the  short-lived  Re- 
public of  Venice,  in  1848. 

When  the  Austrians  regained  their  sway  over  the 
Dominio  Veneto,  the  President  of  the  Republic  of 
Saint  Mark  took  refuge  in  Paris.  He  had  been  bred 
an  advocate;  but  there  was  no  employment  available 
for  him  at  the  Parisian  Bar.  He  was  very  poor  ;  and 
as  a  means  of  subsistence  he  obtained  an  engagement 
to  give  lessons  in  Italian  to  the  daughters  of  the  cele- 
brated French  dramatist  Ponsard.  Or,  perhaps  it  was 
Legouve.  Week  after  week  did  he  toil  and  moil  in 
attempts  to  drum  the  conjugations  of  the  Italian  irreg- 
ular verbs  into  the  heads  of  the  young  ladies ;  but  one 
afternoon,  losing  all  heart,  he  quietly  remarked :  "  I 
am  good  for  nothing  but  to  be  a  ruler  over  men ;  "  and 
so  made  his  pupils  a  low  bow,  put  on  his  hat,  and  de- 
parted. Garibaldi  was  the  born  soldier,  or  rather  the 
born  chief  of  partisans  ;  he  was  another  Hofer,  another 
Schill,  another  Tell — if  there  really  was  ever  such  a 
personage  as  William  Tell — but  he  was  not  a  director 
of  policy  or  a  framer  of  laws. 

We  had  a  bit  of  a  battle  with  the  Austrians  at  a 
place  called  Montesuelo  ;  and  in  connection  with  this 
engagement,  which  was  not  wholly  advantageous  to 
the  red-shirts,  a  ludicrous  story  is  told  of  one  of  the 
special  correspondents.     I  suppose  that  in  every  camp. 


WITH   GARIBALDI   IN   THE   TYROL  ^^ 


from  that  of  the  Tenth  Legion  of  old  down  to  those  of 
the  armies  of  modern  times,  there  are  always  current  a 
large  number  of  more  or  less  apocryphal  stories  which, 
in  campaigning  parlance,  are  known  as  "  shaves."  I 
know  not  how  much  truth,  if  there  be  any,  there  is  in 
the  little  story  which  I  am  about  to  tell,  for  I  did  not 
witness  the  incident  to  which  it  refers  myself ;  still,  as 
"shaves"  went,  it  may  be  considered  as  a  sufficiently 
humorous  one.  At  the  time  when  the  battle  was  at 
its  height  one  of  the  Garibaldini  battalions,  decimated 
by  the  fierce  fire  of  the  Austrian  Infantry,  was  waver- 
ing, and  seemed  in  imminent  peril  of  being  hopelessly 
broken. 

The  special  correspondent  of  whom  I  speak  was  a 
tall,  thin,  good-looking  gentleman,  who  habitually 
dressed  in  a  light  brown-hoUand  suit,  and  enhanced 
the  picturesqueness  of  his  white  pith  helmet  by  attach- 
ing thereto  a  white  muslin  pugree.  His  only  weapon 
was  an  alpenstock,  and  his  usual  means  of  locomotion 
was  the  open  shandrydan  with  the  two  bandy-legged 
ponies,  of  which  I  have  already  spoken.  Suddenly — I 
tell  the  tale  as  it  was  told  to  me — there  appeared  in 
front  of  the  half-routed  battalion  of  red-shirts  this  nota- 
ble journalist,  mounted  on  a  white  horse.  He  had  a 
light  paletot  over  his  brown  holland  ;  and  waving  his 
alpenstock  wide  in  air  and  the  pugree  streaming  from 
his  helmet  behind,  he  shouted  in  a  stentorian  voice, 
'' Avanti,  ragazd,  Avanti  .f'  And  the  story  went  on 
to  say  that  his  appearance  so  stimulated  the  martial 
energy  of  the  wavering  red-shirts  that  they  re-formed 
their  wavering  line,  charged  the  enemy,  and  repulsed 
them  with  serious  loss.  Whether  they  took  the  rider 
of  the  white  horse  for  "  Garibaldi's  Englishman,"  or 
for  one  of  the  Seven  Champions  of  Christendom,  or 
for  one  of  the  Great  Twin  Brethren  who  fought  in  the 
battle  of  the  Lake  Regillus,  1  cannot  tell. 


78  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

An  ancient  Roman  writer,  however,  has  observed 
that  there  is  no  falsehood  so  flagrant  but  that  it  has  an 
element  of  truth  in  it.  For  the  accuracy  of  one  por- 
tion of  the  "  shave  "  touching  the  correspondent  on 
the  white  horse  I  can  vouch.  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  him  when  the  fight  was  over ;  and  immedi- 
ately perceived  that  the  overcoat  he  wore,  a  drab  sum- 
mer paletot,  was  mine  own ;  and  I  remembered  that  I 
had  left  the  garment  at  Peschiera  just  before  the  Aus- 
trians  had  entered  that  town  in  force.  My  friend  said 
that  he  had  annexed  the  coat,  as  lawful  booty  of  war, 
having  found  it  on  the  body  of  a  slain  Austrian  officer ; 
but  that  as  he  knew  the  coat  was  my  property,  he  now 
laughingly  restored  it  to  me.  But  mark  the  caprice 
of  Fate  !  In  those  days  I  always  wrote  with  the  dark 
blue  ink  which  Dickens  invariably  used,  and  which 
most  of  his  young  men  also  made  use  of  out  of  liking 
for  their  Chief.  1  had  brought  to  Italy  a  tin  flask  Avith 
a  screw  top,  and  holding  about  a  pint,  and  I  had  left 
this  flask,  about  three-parts  full,  at  Peschiera.  In  the 
other  pocket  I  had  left  a  memorandum  book.  When 
I  came  to  examine  the  pockets  of  my  coat,  I  found  my 
tin  flask,  sure  enough  ;  but  the  ink  had  been  poured 
away  ;  the  bottle  had  been  washed  out,  and  it  was  half 
full  of  rum ;  my  notebook  had  disappeared,  but  in  its 
stead  was  a  pack  of  playing  cards.  The  myster}''  of 
the  white  horse  I  was  never  able  to  clear  up.  Was  the 
Austrian  officer  who  came  to  grief  a  mounted  one ; 
and  did  my  friend  also  annex  his  horse  as  lawful  booty 
of  war  ? 

About  this  time  came  to  the  front  another  English 
war  correspondent,  my  good  friend  Edward  Dicey, 
now  a  Companion  of  the  Bath.  A  Cambridge  man, 
he  had  travelled  extensively  in  Italy,  and  knew  Gari- 
baldi very  well.  He  had  long  been  a  colleague  of 
mine  as  a  leader  writer  on  the  Daily  Telegraph ;  and  I 


WITH   GARIBALDI   IN   THE   TYROL  79 

suppose  that  he  was  one  of  that  band  of  "  young  lions  " 
about  whom  the  late  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  used  to 
write  such  very  smart  things. 

There  was  yet  another  visitor  to  Garibaldi's  camp 
who  has  honoured  me  from  that  day  to  this  with  con- 
stant  and  thoughtful  friendship.  This  was  Lord  Ron- 
ald Gower,  a  younger  brother  of  the  late  Duke  of 
Sutherland,  whose  mother,  the  good  and  beautiful 
Duchess  of  Sutherland,  was,  as  I  have  said  more  than 
once  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  book,  one  of  my 
mother's  most  steadfast  and  most  generous  patronesses. 
The  Duke,  her  son,  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of 
Garibaldi,  and  was  his  host  at  Stafford  House  on  the 
occasion  of  the  visit  of  the  Liberator  of  the  Two  Sici- 
lies to  London — a  visit  so  magnificently  begun  in  the 
popular  enthusiasm  which  it  excited,  but  which  was 
brought  to  a  sudden  and  mysterious  termination. 
Lord  Ronald  Gower  shared  his  brother's  admiration 
for  Garibaldi.  I  shall  have  something  to  say  later  on 
touching  his  lordship's  accomplishments  as  a  drafts- 
man, a  sculptor,  and  a  writer  on  art  and  vertu ;  but  I 
should  like  him  to  tell  me,  should  he  chance  to  read 
this  page,  if  there  be  any  truth  in  the  following  little 
story  which  I  heard  in  Italy  touching  Garibaldi's  visit 
to  the  Duke. 

It  is  to  this  effect.  When  Garibaldi,  after  a  pro- 
tracted and  triumphant  progress  from  the  east  to  the 
west  of  the  metropolis,  arrived  at  Stafford  House,  he 
was  exhausted  by  fatigue  ;  declined  to  partake  of  the 
banquet  prepared  for  him  ;  and  said  he  should  like 
to  have  some  bread  and  cheese  and  a  bottle  of  pale  ale, 
and  then  retire  to  rest ;  which  he  presently  did.  The 
next  morning,  at  eight,  the  servant  came  to  his  door  to 
ask  if  he  lacked  anything.  There  was  no  Garibaldi  in 
the  room.  The  domestic  came  again  at  ten ;  but  the 
quandam  Dictator  of  Naples  was  still   absent.     Being 


80        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

diligently  sought  for,  he  was  found  in  the  great  picture 
gallery  ;  where  he  was  quietly  sauntering  and  admiring 
the  masterpieces  of  painting  on  the  walls.  Breakfast 
was  ready,  he  was  told.  The  General  expressed  his 
thanks,  but  said  that  he  had  already  breakfasted. 
"  Breakfasted  !  "  exclaimed  in  astonishment  his  inter- 
locutor. "  Yes,"  calmly  replied  the  frugal  hero,  "  I 
get  up  at  six  ;  I  feel  hungry  ;  there  was  a  little  bread 
and  a  little  cheese  left,  I  eat  him,  and  there  was  also  a 
little  beer  remaining,  and  I  drink  him."  If  this  be  a 
"shave,"  it  is  a  tolerably  close  one  as  an  illustration 
of  the  Spartan  simplicity  of  Giuseppe  Garibaldi  in  all 
things. 

We  had  another  fight  with  the  Austrians  some  days 
after  Montesuelo,  in  which  the  Garibaldini  remained 
masters  of  the  field  ;  and,  indeed,  it  may  be  said  that 
although  Garibaldi  had  won  no  striking  victories  in 
his  campaign,  he  had  at  least  continued  to  advance 
into  the  enemy's  country,  and  had  well  planted  his  foot 
on  the  soil  of  the  Southern  Tyrol.  After  the  engage- 
ment, of  which  I  have  spoken,  the  Italian  troops  halted 
at  a  village  where  there  was  a  small  poverty-stricken 
tumble-down  little  church  ;  and  there  being  no  hospital 
nor  convent  available,  the  wounded  were  carried  into 
the  church.  There  was  adequate  surgical  aid  at  hand, 
and  there  was  a  miserable  deficiency  of  hospital  ap- 
pliances, especially  of  bandages ;  and  it  is  a  fact  which 
the  humane,  the  merciful,  and  the  compassionate 
should  lay  to  heart,  that  the  two  noble  Englishwomen, 
Mrs.  Chambers  and  Madame  Jessie  Meriton  White 
Mario,  tore  up  every  rag  and  stitch  of  their  under- 
clothing to  make  bandages  withal,  and  came  out  of 
that  church  with  nothing  but  their  gowns  to  cover 
them. 

After  another  successful  brush  with  the  enemy, 
Garibaldi  believed  that  he  would  be  able  to  push  on 


WITH   GARIBALDI   IN   THE   TYROL  8 1 

as  far  as  Trent  and  occupy  that  important  town  ;  but, 
alas  \ — did  not  Mr.  Kinglake  remark,  in  ''  Eothen," 
that,  alas  !  was  an  ejaculation  which  everybody  wrote 
and  nobody  uttered  ? — there  appeared  at  head-quar- 
ters an  open  barouche  and  pair,  in  which  was  seated 
an  Italian  staff-officei",  in  a  dark  blue  uniform  and  gold 
bullion  epaulettes,  who  turned  out  to  be  an  aide-de- 
camp of  King  Victor  Emmanuel.  The  Prussians  had 
routed  the  Austrians  at  Koniggratz  ;  there  was  to  be 
peace  between  the  two  Powers  ;  and  Italy,  much  to 
her  disgust,  was  instructed  by  her  French  friend — 
Garibaldi's  rr  Monsieur  —  to  make  peace  with  the 
Kaiser.  As  a  consolation,  howevei*,  the  Dominio 
Veneto  was  to  be  given  up  to  her  ;  and  thus  the  Em- 
peror Napoleon  practically  was  to  redeem  his  promise 
of  freeing  Italy  from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic.  Rome 
only,  and  the  States  of  the  Church,  were  excepted 
from  the  stately  kingdom  conferred  on  the  whilom 
Sovereign  of  Sardinia :  —  the  luckiest  monarch,  I 
should  say,  that  has  lived  for  centuries.  Still,  al- 
though the  glittering  prize  of  Venice,  Verona,  Padua, 
Vicenza,  and  Mantua  was  dangled  before  their  eyes, 
the  Italians  felt  sore  with  the  peace  which  had  been 
concluded  without  giving  them  Rome.  They  were 
sore  at  having  been  worsted  by  the  Austrians  in  the 
Quadrilateral ;  since,  although  the  TcdcscJii  did  not 
pursue  the  Italian  army,  but  re-entered  Mantua  at 
nightfall,  the  Italian  army  had  been  forced  to  fall  be- 
hind the  Mincio,  and  though  they  vehemently  de- 
clared Custozza  to  have  been  a  drawn  battle,  there 
was  a  general  consensus  of  European  opinion  that 
Austria  had  won  the  day  on  the  24th  June,  1866. 

They  were  sorer  at  having  been  signally  defeated  by 
the  Austrian  fleet,  commanded  by  Admiral  Tegethoff, 
at  Lissa,  in  the  Adriatic,  and  although  the  Italian 
Commander,  Admiral  Persano,  stated  somewhat  vain- 

II.— 6 


82  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

gloriously  in  his  despatch,  that  the  Italians  remained 
masters  of  the  scene  of  battle  {jioi  siamo  padroni  delle 
segue  di  Lissd),  it  is  certain  that  Tegethoff  rammed  and 
jammed  the  Italian  warships  into  a  cocked-hat,  as  the 
Americans  would  say,  and  sunk  one  huge  ironclad 
right  out.  As  for  Garibaldi,  he  was  more  than  sore  ; 
he  was  enraged  ;  and  made  haste  to  throw  up  'his 
command,  and  return  to  his  island  home  at  Caprera. 
At  the  conclusion  of  this — well,  let  us  say,  equivocal — 
campaign,  the  little  band  of  English  special  correspon- 
dents broke  up.  Hyndman  and  the  present  writer  re- 
turned to  Milan  ;  Henty  left  for  Ancona,  in  the  har- 
bour of  which  he  witnessed  the  fearful  catastrophe  of 
the  foundering  of  the  ironclad  Affondatore,  a  disaster 
which  took  place  just  as  the  enormous  vessel  was  en- 
tering the  port. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

THE   LIBERATION   OF  VENICE 

At  Milan  we  found  the  late  Mr.  Frederick  Hardman, 
a  well-known  travelling  correspondent  of  the  Tiines, 
who  afterwards  represented  that  journal  in  Paris. 
Mr.  Hardman  may  be  considered  as  one  of  the  pio- 
neers of  that  peculiar  class  of  journalists  of  whom 
William  Howard  Russell  has  been  for  a  long  time  the 
acknowledged  doyen  and  chief.  Hardman  had  served 
the  Times  during  the  Carlist  and  Cristino  war  in  Spain, 
in  which  there  did  good  service  for  another  journal 
the  late  Mr.  Charles  Lewis  Gruneisen — another  pio- 
neer of  special  war  correspondents.  He  was  on  the 
Cristino  side  ;  had  been  captured  by  the  Carlists,  and 
w^as  about  to  be  shot,  when  he  was  rescued  from  his 
impending  fate  by  the  intercession  of  the  late  Lord 
Ranelagh,  who  had  taken  service  in  the  cause  of  Don 
Carlos  de  Borbon.  There  was,  as  we  are  all  aware,  no 
special  war  correspondent  at  Waterloo  ;  although  I 
have  heard  it  stated  that  an  agent  of  the  house  of 
Rothschild,  and  an  English  commercial  traveller,  were 
on  the  field  on  the  i8th  June,  1815. 

So  far  as  I  can  make  out,  the  first  recognised  war 
correspondent  of  a  newspaper  was  a  gentleman — I 
have  never  heard  his  name — who  represented  the 
Times  at  the  siege  of  Antwerp,  in  1831.  Much  earlier 
in  the  century  the  Walcheren  expedition  was  joined  in 
an  informal  and  unrecognised  manner  by  a  journalist 
named  Peter  Finnerty,  who,  on  his  return,  told  the 
British  public  a  great  deal  more  about  that  unfortu- 


84        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


nate  naval  and  military  blunder  than  the  British  Gov- 
ernment of  the  day  cared  to  have  published  :— 

"  Lord  Chatham,  with  his  sword  drawn, 
Was  waiting  for  Sir  Richard  Strachan  ; 
Sir  Richard,  longing  to  be  at  'em. 
Stood  waiting  for  the  Earl  of  Chatham." 

Who  wrote  this  epigram  ?  There  are  many  variants 
of  the  lines  which  I  have  quoted.  In  one  version, 
Lord  Chatham  is  the  waiting  earl,  and  his  sword  is 
a  "  sabre."  In  another,  Sir  Richard  Strachan  is  not 
"longing,"  but  "eager."  Peter  Finnerty,  at  some 
period  of  his  career,  managed  to  get  in  prison,  if  not 
into  the  pillory,  for  libel ;  and  he  always  ascribed  his 
prosecution  to  the  maleficent  influence  of  Lord  Castle- 
reagh.  Peter  was  a  humorist;  and  the  revenge  he 
took  on  his  potential  persecutor  was  peculiar.  When- 
ever he  met  his  lordship  in  the  street  he  always  took 
off  his  hat  and  made  him  a  series  of  profound  bows, 
which  Lord  Castlereagh,  who  had  not  the  slightest 
idea  of  who  Peter  was,  never  failed  to  return  with 
true  patrician  courtesy.  Peter  was  at  one  time  art- 
critic  for  one  of  the  London  daily  newspapers,  and 
whenever  a  portrait  of  Lord  Castlereagh  came  under 
his  notice  at  any  picture  exhibition,  he  took  care  to 
describe  the  effigy  of  the  noble  lord  as  that  of  one  of 
the  loveliest  of  mankind,  insinuating,  however,  before 
he  had  got  to  the  end  of  his  critique,  that  his  lordship 
was  an  embodied  counterpart  of  Old  Nick. 

The  autumn  was  demoniacally  hot  at  Milan ;  and  I 
longed  for  the  seaside.  Another  motive  impelled  me 
towards  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic.  Peace  was  con- 
cluded, but  the  Convention  by  which  Venice  was  to 
be  ceded  to  the  Italians  was  not  yet  signed.  The  city 
was  still  in  a  state  of  siege,  and  my  wife  was  still  shut 
up  there.     Half-a-dozen  times  I  ran  down  to  Mestre 


THE   LIBERATION   OF  VENICE  85 

on  the  Tiain  land ;  and  a  friendly  milkwoman,  and  an 
equally  obliging  laundress  used  to  fetch  and  carry  our 
correspondence  in  their  barges  across  the  lagoon.  It 
was  announced,  however,  that  in  another  fortnight  or 
three  weeks  the  siege  would  be  raised  ;  although  Ven- 
ice would  continue  to  be  garrisoned  by  the  Austrians 
until  the  beginning  of  November.  Meanwhile,  civil- 
ians from  the  outside  would  have  free  ingress  to  the 
place. 

The  interval  I  passed  in  travelling  in  the  company 
of  M.  Plantulli,  Garibaldi's  whilom  secretar}^,  or  aide- 
de-camp,  through  the  liberated  Dominio  Veneto,  which, 
with  the  exception  of  Verona,  had  been  wholly  evacu- 
ated by  the  TcdcscJii.  M.  Plantulli  was  a  lively,  festive 
little  gentleman,  a  quondam  student,  I  take  it,  of  the 
University  of  Naples,  and  an  Italianissimo  of  the  Ital- 
ianissimi.  He  worshipped  Garibaldi  ;  and,  young  as 
he  Avas — he  was  scarcely  thirty — he  had  done  good 
service  in  the  cause  of  his  beloved  country.  At  the 
age  of  sixteen  he  had  served  that  country  both  in  meal 
and  in  malt ;  for,  at  the  early  age  I  speak  of,  having 
been  implicated  in  a  political  conspiracy  against  the 
Government  of  King  Bomba,  it  was  Signor  PlantuUi's 
patriotic,  but  scarcely  agreeable,  lot  to  be  condemned 
to  hard  labour  for  life  and  in  chains.  He  got  out  of 
durance,  however,  with  one  of  the  Thousand  of  Mar- 
sala, and  entered  Naples  in  triumph  with  his  Chief. 
"  We  at  once,"  he  used  to  say,  "  proceeded  to  the 
Royal  Palace  of  Capo  di  Monte,  and  apartments  were 
assigned  to  all  the  members  of  the  General's  staff. 
They  put  me  into  an  immense  bedroom,  with  crystal 
chandeliers  hanging  from  the  ceiling,  and  candelabra 
carrying  twenty  wax  tapers  each,  all  of  which  I  took 
care  to  light.  There  was  a  huge  four-post  bedstead, 
with  pillars  of  the  Corinthian  order,  with  gilt  capitals, 
and   draped  with  sumptuous  damask.     I  did  not  un- 


S6  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 


dress,  but  I  threw  m^-self  on  the  bed,  which  was  cov- 
ered by  a  quilled  counterpane  of  eiderdown,  covered 
with  silk  and  gold  brocade ;  and,  lying  on  my  back, 
dug  both  my  spurs  into  the  bed  with  the  exultant 
fancy  that  I  was  digging  them  into  the  corpse  of  the 
prostrate  and  vanquished  Bomba,  or  rather  his  effete 
son  Bombina." 

PlantuUi  and  I  visited  Padua;  where  I  made  at  once 
for  the  historic  Caffe  Pedrocchi,  a  place  of  entertain- 
ment which,  so  it  is  said,  had  never  been  closed  for  a 
single  night  in  the  course  of  three  consecutive  centu- 
ries. There  is  another  ca^e  at  Venice  that  has  a  similar 
social  record — the  Caffe  Florian.  When  Marshal  Hay- 
nau  was  in  command  in  the  city  he  issued  a  general 
order,  directing  that  all  the  caffcs  should  be  closed  at 
midnight.  The  proprietor  of  Florian's  waited  on  His 
Excellency,  and  represented  that  Venetian  social  life 
did  not  virtually  begin  until  midnight.  "  I  care  noth- 
ing for  that,"  the  Marshal  sternly  replied  ;  "  if  you 
don't  have  your  shutters  up  by  twelve  o'clock,  I  shall 
send  you  to  gaol."  "  But,  Excellency,"  submissively- 
urged  the  r^Tjf^-keeper,  "  I  have  not  got  any  shutters ; 
and  Florian  has  never  had  any  since  the  days  of  Ma- 
rino Faliero."  He  had  brought  down,  it  is  true,  that 
unfortunate  Doge  by  rather  a  long  shot;  but  Haynau, 
who  was  in  the  main  not  altogether  inhuman,  laughed, 
told  the  lanalord  to  go  about  his  business,  and  prom- 
ised that  he  should  not  be  molested. 

I  have  no  desire,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  to  pad 
out  my  Autobiography  with  guide-book  notices  of  dif- 
ferent towns,  at  each  of  which  I  made  a  few  days' 
sojourn  ;  still  1  cannot  help  dwelling  briefly  on  just 
two  subjects.  Wandering  from  Milan  to  Mantua  and 
from  Padua  to  Verona  and  Vicenza,  there  grew  up  in 
one,  day  after  day,  a  stronger  and  stronger  impression 
— an  impression  which  has  become  an  unalterable  con- 


THE   LIBERATION   OF   VENICE  8/ 

viction — that  Shakespeare  knew  every  rood  of  ground 
and  every  building  in  the  cities,  the  scenes  of  which 
he  had  laid  in  the  Merchant  of  Vejiice  and  in  OtJicllo,  in 
The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and 
in  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  Few  tourists  who  have 
visited  Northern  Italy  have  escaped  being  pestered  by 
ciceroni,  who  have  offered  to  show  them  the  tomb  of 
Juliet  at  Verona;  the  shop  of  the  apothecary  at  Man- 
tua ;  and  the  Palazzo  del  Moro,  on  the  Grand  Canal, 
at  Venice ;  but  it  was  the  constant  study  of  ostensibly 
petty  details  in  Shakespeare's  Italian  plays  that  led 
me  to  the  full  and  fast  belief  that  he  was  familiar  from 
actual  experience  and  observation  with  the  Northern 
Italy  of  his  time. 

There  is  not  in  his  works  the  slightest  indication 
that  leads  a  reader,  who  is  as  familiar  with  the  Penin- 
sula as  he  is  with  his  own  country,  to  think  that  the 
Bard  of  all  Time  knew  anything  personally  about 
Rome ;  whereas  the  plays  which  I  have  mentioned 
seem  to  me  to  bear  the  strongest  testimony  to  his 
thorough  knowledge  of,  among  others,  the  cities  which 
I  have  cited. 

Next  you  will  pardon  me  if  I  venture  on  yet  an- 
other brief  excursus,  not  at  all  of  a  guide-book  char- 
acter, on  Ferrara.  I  don't  wish  to  talk  about  the 
gloomy,  unhealthy  city,  either  from  an  artistic  and 
architectural,  or  a  historical  point  of  view  ;  but,  dur- 
ing the  three  days,  PlantuUi  and  I  abode  in  an  imper- 
fectly sanitated  hotel,  about  fifty  times  as  large  as  it 
should  have  been  to  meet  the  requirements  of  its  aver- 
age number  of  guests,  I  was  haunted  by  the  ghost  of 
Lucrezia  Borgia.  Not  by  her  historic  phantom. 
Those  who  have  read  the  late  Mr.  Gilbert's  admirable 
monograph  on  Lucrezia,  know  that  the  much  ma- 
ligned Duchess  died  in  her  bed  in  honour  and  fair  re- 
pute.    She  had   had,  it  is  true,  four  husbands ;    but 


S8  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 


where  is  the  harm  in  that  circumstance?  How  many 
spouses  had  the  Wife  of  Bath  ? — and  did  not  another 
lady,  when  she  espoused  her  fourth  consort,  cause  to 
be  engraved  inside  her  wedding  ring  this  sweet  little 
posy — 

"  If  I  survive, 
I  will  have  five  ?  " 

It  may  be  true  that  Donna  Lucrezia's  early  married 
life  may  have  been  a  little  breezy  ;  but  if  she  did  cause 
to  be  stabbed  or  murdered  a  few  people  whose  room 
she  preferred  to  their  company,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  application  of  cold  steel  under  the  fifth 
rib  of  objectionable  people  was  an  integral  part  of  the 
manners  of  the  epoch  ;  and  the  cup  of  cold  poison  was 
very  plentifully  administered,  and  that  the  science  of 
chemical  analysis  was  in  its  infancy. 

For  the  rest,  Lucrezia  was  a  \ery  good  wife  to  her 
fourth  husband,  Don  Alfonso  d'Este.  She  patronised 
literature  and  the  arts ;  she  favoured,  it  is  said,  the 
cause  of  the  Reformation  in  Italy  ;  she  corresponded 
with  Bembo,  and  she  pensioned  Ariosto.  The  dame 
who  haunted  me  was  the  Lucrece  Boriria  of  Victor 
Hugo's  tragedy,  and  the  Lucrezia  of  Donizetti's  opera, 
which  was  nearly  the  first  that  I  ever  witnessed.  I 
can  hear  now,  in  my  memory  for  melody,  Grisi  as 
Donna  Lucrezia,  Rubini  as  Genarro,  and  Brambilla  as 
Mafio  Orsini ;  but  I  forget  who  was  the  Don  Alfonso, 
and  who  the  Gubetta.  There  came  back  to  me  at  Fer- 
rara  the  strains  of  "  Com'  e  bello,"  the  dulcet  melody 
of  "  Di  pescator  ignobile,"  the  terrific  denunciation  of 
the  masked  lady  by  Genarro's  companions  at  Venice, 
and  the  glorious  brindisi  in  the  last  act,  "  II  segreto  per 
esser  felice."  Why  is  it  that  Lucrezia  Borgia  is  never 
played  in  England,  nowadays  ?  Is  it  that  modern  hy- 
per-criticism  deems  the  glorious  opera  too  puny  for 


THE   LIBERATION   OF   VENICE  89 

modern  ears,  depraved  and  distorted  by  Wag-nerism  ; 
or  is  it  because  we  have  wo  prima  donna  at  present  who 
could  do  justice  to  the  part  of  the  heroine?  Why 
have  we  no  impersonators  of  Norma,  of  Semiramide? 
Is  it  that  we  have  no  operatic  singer  who  is  equal  to  the 
requirements  of  "  Al  dolce  guldarni "  or  of  "  Qual  mesto 
gemito?"     Tell  us,  Sir  Augustus  Harris,  tell  us  why. 

Not  alone,  however,  was  I  pursued  by  the  appari- 
tion of  Donizetti's  Duchess.  I  had  visions  of  the 
fierce,  passionate,  much -hating,  much -loving  woman. 
I  knew  Victor  Hugo's  tragedy  by  heart,  since,  as  a 
boy,  I  read  it  in  secret  at  night  or  at  early  morn.  Its 
resting-place  was  between  the  mattress  and  the  pail- 
lasse of  my  bed  ;  for  Liicrcce  Borgia  was  a  play  which 
had  been  sternly  placed  in  the  domestic  Index  Expur- 
gatorius.  With  what  grave  joy  did  I  find  myself  in 
desolate,  evil-smelling  Ferrara,  which  is  too  vasty,  not 
only  for  the  guests  in  its  hotels,  but  for  its  inhabitants, 
so  that  you  can  hire  a  palace  with  scores  of  rooms  in 
it,  each  as  big  as  a  barn,  for  about  £']^  a  year.  But 
the  Ferrara  which  revealed  itself  to  me  was  the  city 
of  Victor  Hugo.  First,  I  mentally  strayed  to  Venice, 
and  saw  the  masked  lady  bending  over  her  sleeping 
son  ;  I  watched  the  young  nobles  enter  and  virulently 
denounce  the  guilty  daughter  of  Pope  Alexander  VI. 
Then  I  came  back  to  Ferrara,  and  conjured  up  the 
scene  in  which  the  reckless  young  patrician,  headed 
by  Genarro,  hacked  out  of  the  escutcheon  over  the 
ducal  palace,  the  first  letter  of  Borgia — leaving  it  OR- 
GIA.  Then  that  quaint  conversation  in  the  street  be- 
tween les  dciix  homines  vetus  de  noir,  Gubetta  and  Rus- 
tighello  ;  the  stormy  interview  between  the  Duke  and 
his  wife  ;  his  indignant  apostrophe  to  her,  beginning, 
"  Tenes,  Madame,  je  hais  voire  abominable  fainille^'  and 
her  famous  retort,  ''■  Prcncz  garde,  Don  Alfonse  d'Este, 
mon  qnatrieme  mari^ 


90        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

And  so  on  to  the  last  act — the  banquet  at  the  Prin- 
cess Negroni's,  the  glorious  brindisi,  followed  by  the 
Penitential  Psalms,  chanted  in  lugubrious  strophes  by 
the  sable-clad  friars  bearing  torches,  who,  drawing 
aside,  reveal  seven  coffins.  Then  enters  the  implaca- 
ble Donna  Lucrezia.  "  Vouz  inavez  donnd  un  bal  h  Ve- 
nisc^'  she  says,  addressing  the  poisoned  nobles,  "y>  vous 
rends  nn  soupcr  a  Ferrarey  They  are  all  dead  men,  but 
Genarro  lives  long  enough  to  slay  his  wicked  mamma. 
Curtain.  End.  Thus  it  is  in  the  play,  at  least;  but 
there  was  no  end  to  the  tragedy,  to  my  mind,  while  I 
sojourned  in  the  fatal  city.  There  seemed  to  me  to  be 
an  uncomfortable  number  of  farmacic,  or  druggists' 
shops,  in  Ferrara ;  and  a  dozen  times  a  day  I  used  to 
fancy  that  I  saw  the  brougham  of  Donna  Lucrezia 
standing  at  the  door  of  one  of  these  establishments.  I 
was,  in  truth,  glad  enough  to  get  away  from  the 
gloomy  old  place  ;  since  Ferrara  had  begun  to  work 
upon  my  nerves.  I  distrusted  the  food  at  the  hotel — 
it  was  normally  very  nasty  food — and  half  suspected 
that  the  Baleful  Duchess  had  been  putting  arsenic  into 
the  risotto,  or  mix  vomica  into  the  wine. 

But  the  state  of  siege  at  Venice  was  raised  ;  and 
I  was  suffered  to  rejoin  my  beloved  partner  in  life. 
She  had  got  on,  during  my  absence,  tolerably  well, 
and  had  been  comforted  during  the  last  few  weeks  of 
her  virtual  beleaguerment  by  the  letters  transmitted 
to  her  by  the  friendly  milkwoman  and  the  obliging  laun- 
dress. Mr.  Etzensberger,  the  manager  of  the  Hotel 
Victoria,  had  stood  by  her  manfully,  and  there  was  an 
account  of  somewhat  alarming  proportions  to  be  paid  ; 
a  bank  post-bill — are  there  any  bank  post-bills  now? 
— which  had  been  transmitted  to  her  on  mj^  account 
from  London,  having  either  been  stolen,  or  gone  hope- 
lessly astray  on  its  way  through  Southern  Germany, 
whence,  in  due  course,  it  should  have  reached  Venice. 


THE   LIBERATION   OF   VENICE  9I 

I  must  recall  a  rather  interesting  incident  which  I 
witnessed  at  Mestre,the  station  where  I  took  the  train 
which  rattles  over  the  railway  causeway  across  the 
lagoons.  I  had  to  wait  a  considerable  time  ;  whiling 
which  time  away  with  a  cigar,  1  became  aware  of  a 
four-horsed  drag,  or  four-in-hand,  splendidly  horsed 
and  splendidly  "  tooled  "  by  a  gentleman  in  a  grey 
box-coat  with  mother-of-pearl  buttons  as  large  as 
cheese  plates,  and  collar  and  cuffs  of  fawn-coloured 
velvet.  He  wore  a  white  silk  hat  with  a  black  band. 
The  two  grooms  in  the  dickey  sat  rigidly  upright, 
folding  their  arms  like  a  couple  of  statues  ;  and  by  the 
driver's  side  was  a  handsome  lady,  fashionably  attired. 
The  gentleman  rose,  pointed  with  his  whip  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  lagoons,  said  to  the  lady,  "  Venice  is 
over  there,  I  reckon,"  and  straightway  turned  his 
team,  and  drove  composedly  back  along  the  narrow 
road.  Let  us  not  accuse  him  too  hastily  of  indiffer- 
ence to  the  beauties  of  the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic. 
Possibly  he  had  driven  that  drag  right  through 
France,  down  south  to  the  Riviera,  and  then  along 
the  marvellous  CJicmi)i  dc  la  CornicJie  to  Genoa,  whence 
he  would  go,  without  much  difficulty,  to  Mestre.  But 
what  could  he  have  done  with  a  four-in-hand  at  Ven- 
ice? 

I  do  not  remember  that  the  Grand  Canal,  even  in 
the  severest  of  winters,  has  ever  been  frozen  over. 
There  was  something,  however,  especially  whimsical 
in  a  gentleman  driving  such  a  long  distance  and  con- 
tenting himself  with  what  may  be  called  a  Pisgah  view 
of  the  Italian  Palestine.  At  least,  four  English  Gren- 
adiers, whom  I  was  aware  of  once  at  Niagara,  saw 
more  of  the  Falls  than  the  gentleman  in  the  box-seat 
of  the  four-in-hand  saw  of  Venice.  It  was  in  this  wise. 
I  was  at  Niagara,  on  the  Canadian  side,  in  the  winter 
of  1863.     Four  strapping  sergeants  of  the  Grenadier 


92  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

Guards,  then  in  garrison  at  Montreal,  in  their  warm 
grey  great  coats,  had  got  leave  to  visit  Niagara.  I 
saw  them  emerge  from  the  railway  station  ;  I  watched 
them  proceed,  with  military  deliberation  and  exacti- 
tude of  step,  to  the  Table  Rock  ;  they  took  a  view — a 
brief,  but  comprehensive  one — of  the  Horseshoe  falls, 
immediately  following  it  by  the  simple  evolution 
known  as  right-about-face,  and  marched  back  to  the 
railway  station  again.  Julius  Cccsar  tells  us,  in  his 
"  Commentaries,"  that  he  came  into  Gaul  *'  with  sum- 
mary diligence  ;  "  but  he  stayed  there  somewhat  lon- 
ger than  the  four  sergeants  did  at  Niagara.  Typical 
British  soldiers  were  they.  They  might  have  been 
brethren  of  the  famous  Four  Sergeants  of  the  Indian 
Mutiny,  who,  with  the  sacks  of  powder  on  their  backs, 
marched  across  the  open  and  blew  up  the  Cashmere 
Gate  at  Delhi. 

We  had  the  merriest  of  autumns  in  Venice ;  al- 
though there  was  still  a  strong  Austrian  force  there, 
and  the  Austrian  Governor-General,  Baron  Alemann, 
periodically  issued  alarming  proclamations  forbidding 
the  display  of  what  his  Excellency  ambiguously  termed 
'' stoffe  coloratc,''  which  coloured  stuffs  were,  indeed, 
banners  and  pennants  of  the  Italian  tricolour,  which 
certain  r^^r-keepers  had  prematurely  hoisted,  not  out- 
side, but  inside  their  premises.  Still,  everybody  in 
Venice  knew  that  Baron  Alemann's  sway  was  destined 
to  be  a  very  short  one ;  and  the  sewing  together  of 
stoffc  colorate,  and  the  making  of  tricoloured  cockades 
went  on  in  secret,  but  briskly.  Great  preparations 
were  also  made  for  re-opening  the  Fenice  Theatre, 
which  splendid  house — the  successor  of  the  theatre 
once  glorified  by  the  scenery  painted  by  the  illustrious 
Antonio  da  Canal,  commonly  called  Canaletto — had 
been  closed  for  many  a  long  day  during  the  Austrian 
domination.     It  was  also  understood  that  the  lessees 


THE   LIBERATION   OF   VENICE  93 

of  the  Teatro  Malibran,  where  the  principal  amuse- 
ments used  to  consist  of  rope-dancing  and  sword-swal- 
lowing-, together  with  the  Teatro  Apollo  and  the 
Teatro  San  Samuele  were  also  putting  their  houses  in 
order. 

The  Hotel  Victoria  was  full.  Henty  and  Hyndman 
had  joined  us  to  witness  the  liberation  of  Venice  from 
foreign  rule  ;  while  from  Milan  had  been  despatched, 
as  representative  of  that  important  journal  La  Pcrseve- 
ranza,  a  certain  Dr.  Carlo  Filippi,  a  profound  but  ver- 
satile scholar,  and  a  skilled  musician,  who  used  to 
fascinate  the  ladies — ^especially  two  charming  daugh- 
ters of  a  Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's,  who  were  travelling 
with  their  uncle — by  the  grace  and  vivacity  with  which 
he  would  sing,  accompanying  himself  on  the  pianoforte, 
songs  in  that  Venetian  dialect  which  has  been  made 
attractive,  and  even  fascinating,  to  Italian  scholars  in 
some  of  the  comedies  of  Goldoni.  The  Venetian  dia- 
lect is  one  of  the  Softest  and  sweetest  forms  of  patois 
which  I  know ;  and  contrasts  very  favourably  with 
the  harsh  minga  of  Milan  and  the  guttural  Bolognese. 
In  the  local  speech  oi  Venice  nearly  every  word  is 
mellifluous,  and  consonants  are  discarded  as  much 
as  possible.  Thus  '■'■padre  "  is  "pare,"'  and  "  madrey 
"  marc.''  The  Venetians,  too,  have  a  passion  for 
making  all  nouns  feminine,  and  I  have  even  heard  a 
gondolier  speak  of  Victor  Emmanuel  as  la  Re.  The 
poor  fellow  might,  to  be  sure,  have  pleaded  that  in 
pure  Tuscan,  as  well  as  in  French  and  German,  Maj- 
esty is  always  of  the  feminine  gender. 

On  the  3rd  of  October  Venice  and  Venetia  were 
surrendered  by  Austria  to  the  French  Government,  to 
be  handed  over  to  Italy — Kaiser  Francis  Joseph  being 
too  proud  to  cede  directly  this  splendid  appanage  of 
his  Crown  to  a  Power  which  he  had  twice  beaten  in 
battle.     The  formal  transfer  of  the  city  took  place  on 


94  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

the  17th  October,  at  noon,  the  Commissioners  of  Na- 
poleon III.  being  presided  over  by  that  General  Le- 
boeuf,  who,  as  Marshal  Leboeuf,  played  a  not  very 
brilliant  part  in  the  Franco-German  War  of  1870.  The 
Convention  was  signed  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  the 
cession  proclaimed  to  the  whole  city  by  a  salute  of  a 
hundred  guns.  The  Italian  colours  were  run  up  to 
the  summit  of  the  three  tall  masts  in  front  of  the 
Cathedral  of  St.  Mark.  The  Austrmn  sc Invar s-gclb  w^s 
hauled  down  ;  and  General  Baron  Alemann — a  stout 
little  gentleman,  of  pleasant  mien  —  was  absolutely 
cheered  by  the  crowd  as  he  embarked  at  the  Molo  on 
board  the  gunboat  which  was  to  convey  him  to  Tri- 
este. The  Venetians,  notwithstanding  all  that  English 
people  read  in  "The  Bravo"  and  similar  romances, 
have  always  been  a  kindly,  affectionate,  and  placable 
folk.  When  Fra  Paolo  was  stabbed,  in  consequence  of 
some  theological  controversy  connected  with  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent,  he  knew  full  well  that  the  stiletto  which 
wounded  him  was  not  held  by  a  Venetian  hand  ;  and 
as  he  sank  swooning  to  the  ground,  he  murmured 
"  stilo  Romano^ 

I  have  been  told  that  during  the  long  occupation 
of  Venice  by  the  TedescJii,  it  was  with  the  greatest  rar- 
ity that  Austrian  sentinels  were  ever  assaulted,  or  that 
attempts  were  made  to  assassinate  them  ;  and  if  there 
be  a  city  on  the  face  of  the  globe  most  favourable,  in 
a  topographical  sense,  to  the  perpetration  of  midnight 
murders,  that  city  is  assuredly  Venice.  You  have 
only  to  stab  your  man  and  tip  him  over  into  6ne  of  the 
side  canals  ;  and  away  the  tide  carries  the  corpse  into 
the  Adriatic. 

The  moment  that  the  Austrian  Governor  had  taken 
his  departure,  the  Italian  troops,  who  had  been  massed 
at  the  railway  terminus  hard  by  the  Papadopoulo  Pal- 
ace and  gardens,  were  quickly  shipped  on  board  roomy 


THE   LIBERATION   OF   VENICE  93 


barges,  which  were  towed  by  four  steamers  down  the 
Grand  Canal  to  the  Molo.  The  first  barge  was  crowded 
with  "  Guardie  Civili,"  or  gendarmes  ;  and  the  people 
who  filled  the  gondolas  and  wherries  on  the  Grand 
Canal  cheered  these  gallant  police-constables  in  their 
cocked  hats,  and  red,  white,  and  blue  plumes,  uproar- 
iously. It  is  not  often  the  gendarme's  lot  to  be 
cheered.  A  few  days  after  the  entry  of  the  Italian 
garrison  a  plebiscitum  was  taken  ;  and  the  result  was 
that  651,758  votes  were  cast  for  the  annexation  of  the 
Venetian  to  the  kingdom  of  Italy.  There  were  only 
69  votes  recorded  against  union.  Venetian  Deputies 
at  once  proceeded  to  Turin  to  communicate  the  result 
to  Victor  Emmanuel ;  and  meanwhile  the  Italian  offi- 
cers at  the  garrison  of  Venice  proceeded  to  make  them- 
selves as  comfortable  as  possible  in  their  new  quarters. 
They  crowded  Florian's  and  the  Specchi  caffcs ;  but 
the  proprietor  of  an  establishment  which  hitherto  had 
been  mainly  patronised  by  the  TedescJii,  hastened  to 
take  down  his  sign,  which  was  that  of  "  LTmperatore 
d'Austria,"  and  to  put  up  something  Italian  and  patri- 
otic instead. 

A  few  discontented  Venetians,  suspected  of  "  Aiistri- 
acante"  sympathies,  complained  in  an  undertone  that 
the  Italian  military  bands,  which  discoursed  every 
evening  sweet  strains  on  the  Piazza  San  Marco,  did 
not  play  half  so  well  as  had  been  done  by  the  Austrian 
military  bands,  whose  instrumentation  was  simply  per- 
fect ;  but  these  grumblers  were  soon  frowned  out  of 
countenance.  Then  the  Italian  officers  loudly  de- 
manded that  the  Fenice  Theatre  should  be  opened. 
The  impresario  wanted  to  wait  until  the  arrival  of  His 
Majesty  ;  but  the  military  gentlemen  would  brook  no 
delay.  Then  the  unhappy  manager  urged  that  he  had 
no  company,  either  operatic  or  choregraphic :  in  an- 
swer to  which  plea  he  was  bidden  to  send  for  a  com- 


g6  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

pail}'  from  Vicenza  or  Rovigo,  which  he  presently  did  ; 
and  the  compan}^  speedily  arrived  and  alighted  at  the 
Hotel  Victoria.  A  queer  troupe  they  were,  I  hesi- 
tate to  say  that  the  prima  donna  was  fifty  and  one- 
eyed,  or  that  the  basso  profondo  had  a  wooden  leg  ; 
but  they  were  certainly  not  artistes  of  the  calibre, 
either  physical  or  artistic,  that  English  Opera-goers 
were  accustomed  to  see  at  Her  Majesty's  Theatre  in 
the  Haymarket,  or  that  they  see  at  present  at  the 
Royal  Italian  Opera,  Covent  Garden. 

There  arose,  moreover,  a  slight  difficulty  in  the  cir- 
cumstance that  the  prima  jnima,  or  leading  dumb-show 
actress,  and  the  prima  ballerina  insisted  on  doing  the 
washing  of  their  gauzy  draperies  at  home,  and  on 
hanging  them  out  to  dry  from  the  upper  windows  of 
the  hotel,  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  had  been  a  stately 
palace.  But  this  is  an  incident  which  very  frequently 
happens  in  the  towns  of  provincial  Italy,  when  even 
marchionesses  and  duchesses  not  unfrequently  do  their 
light  washing  at  home,  and  convert  the  window-sills 
of  their  mansions  into  drying-grounds.  Mr.  Etzens- 
berger,  however,  politely  but  firmly  set  his  face  against 
the  practice,  and  he  was  also  obliged  to  tell  the  man- 
ager that  he  could  not  tolerate  the  proceedings  of  the 
company  in  ordering  their  dinners  from  a  neighbour- 
ing and  cheap  "  trattoria,''  or  cook-shop,  instead  of 
partaking  of  the  principal  meal  of  the  day  at  the  table 
d'hote. 

The  English  guests  from  the  Hotel  Victoria  filled 
two  rows  of  the  stalls  at  the  Fenice  on  the  night  when 
the  theatre  was  reopened.  I  cannot  recall  the  name 
of  the  opera  performed,  because  it  was  interrupted  at 
least  twenty  times  by  the  audience  shouting  for 
the  "  Marcia  Reale  "  to  be  played,  or  for  ''  Garibaldi's 
Hymn"  to  be  sung;  and  when  the  over- fatigued 
artistes    could    no   longer    sing,    the    pit   and   gallery 


THE   LIBERATION   OF   VENICE  97 

howled  the  hymns  themselves.  Then  they  called  for 
vivas  for  the  Rt  Galantiiomo  ;  then  there  was  a  shout 
of  "  Ke  Eletto  in  Campidoglio  !  "  meaning  that  they  want- 
ed to  see  their  elected  King  installed  as  Sovereign  of 
United  Italy  at  the  Capitol  of  Rome.  Vivas  for  Ama- 
deo,  Duke  of  Aosta ;  vivas  for  the  Italian  Army  and 
Navy  then  resounded  from  the  auditorium  ;  one  wag- 
gish occupant  of  the  pit  crying,  "  By  all  means  bring 
the  cavalry  to  Venice ;  "  while  another  facetious  gen- 
tleman in  the  galler}^,  pointing  to  the  red  and  silver 
shield  of  the  House  of  Savoy,  which  cognisance  was 
displayed  in  the  centre  of  the  arch  of  the  proscenium, 
called  out,  "  Sale  e  tabaccJii^'  in  allusion  to  the  Royal 
escutcheon  placed  over  the  doors  of  all  Italian  shop- 
keepers who  are  licensed  to  deal  in  the  Government 
monopolies  of  salt  and  tobacco.  But  the  most  fre- 
quent, the  noisiest,  and  the  most  enthusiastic  vivas  of 
the  evening  were  those  thundered  for  "  La  Perla  di 
Savoiay  "  The  Pearl  of  Savoy  "  was  and  is  the  good 
and  beautiful  Margherita,  Queen  of  Italy. 

The  King  made  his  entry  into  Venice  on  the  7th  of 
November,  accompanied  by  a  brilliant  staff,  and  es- 
corted by  his  own  special  body-guard  in  cuirasses, 
plumed  helmets,  and  jack-boots;  but  who  had  obvi- 
ously not  brought  their  horses  with  them.  His  Maj- 
esty entered  one  of  the  State  barges,  which  for  weeks 
previously  the  municipality  of  Venice  had  been  deco- 
rating for  the  use  of  their  Sovereign  and  his  court. 
When  the  King  stepped  into  his  barge  at  the  railway 
terminus,  a  great  roar  went  up  from  the  multitude. 
"  At  last,"  quietly  observed  Dr.  Filippi  to  me,  "  the 
Venetians  are  satisfied  ;  they  have  got  their  King  in  a 
gondola."  As  for  the  people  in  the  gondolas  and 
open  boats,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that,  without 
much  difficulty  and  at  twenty  different  points,  you 
might  have  crossed  the  Grand  Canal  on  foot — so  pro- 
II.— 7 


98  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

digious  and  so  closel}'  wedged  together  were  the  em- 
barcations.  But  the  Prefect  of  Venice  with  a  boat  full 
of  Guar  die  Civili  preceded  the  Royal  flotilla  ;  and  with 
inimitable  dexterity  the  gondoliers  managed  to  make 
a  lane  or  water-way  for  the  King  to  pass,  the  boats 
closing  up  behind  him  immediately  afterwards. 

There  was  a  levee  en  masse  of  the  old  Venetian  no- 
bility, many  of  whom  were  not  in  gondolas,  but  in 
large  "  barchi,"  or  barges,  the  hulls  of  which  were  gilt 
down  to  the  water-line,  canopied  with  crimson  and 
blue  and  cloth  of  gold  and  silver ;  while  there  were 
faisccaiix  of  flags  at  stem  and  stern,  and  the  rowers 
were  clad  in  rich  Venetian  costume.  I  only  wonder 
that  when  the  King  landed  at  the  Piazetta,  the  people 
did  not  catch  His  Majesty  up  in  their  arms  and  carry 
him  away  bodily  into  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Mark.  "  I 
have  not  been  to  mass,"  said  a  Venetian  to  me,  "  for 
twenty  years ;  but  I  have  been  to  St.  Mark's  this 
morning,  and  I  mean  to  go  there  every  day  for  a  fort- 
night. You  see  the  King  is  in  our  midst."  I  hope 
that  the  gentleman's  devotional  feelings  did  not  wholly 
die  away  at  the  expiration  of  fourteen  days. 

Then  there  was  a  rush  to  the  Royal  Palace,  the 
fagade  of  which  fronts  the  Basilica,  and  of  course  the 
"  Re  Eletto  "  had  to  show  himself  at  one  of  the  windows 
to  be  acclaimed  over  and  over  again  with  volleys  of 
cheers.  At  night  St.  Mark's  Place  was  illuminated 
"  architectonically  " — i.e.,  the  lines  horizontal,  vertical, 
and  semi-circular  of  all  the  columns  and  cornices  and 
arcades  of  the  Piazza  were  traced  in  threads  of  fire  ; 
as  was  also  done  with  the  lines  of  the  Byzantine  fagade 
of  the  cathedral,  the  fairy-like  little  Loggetta,  and  the 
two  great  columns  on  the  Piazetta ;  the  Campanile 
became  a  tower  of  fire  ;  and  the  horses  of  St.  Mark 
were  outlined  with  gas-jets. 


CHAPTER   XXXIX 

ROME   AND   NAPLES 

Ere  royalty  took  its  departure,  my  wife  and  I,  follow- 
ing instructions  from  headquarters  in  Fleet  Street, 
bade  farewell — but  not,  as  we  hoped,  a  lasting  one — to 
Venice  and  went  south.  Our  destination  was  Rome, 
where  we  were  to  remain  until  the  following  January. 
By  this  time  the  winter  had  begun,  and  in  Venice, 
although  the  day  of  the  royal  entry  had  been  a  fine 
and  sunny  one,  the  weather  was  disagreeably  raw  and 
occasionally  foggy.  It  grew  worse  by  the  time  we 
got  to  Bologna  ;  and  we  arrived  at  Perugia  in  a  snow- 
storm. I  had  never  been  in  that  artistic  city  before  ; 
I  did  not  know  there  was  a  clean  hotel  there  ;  and  we 
passed  the  night  at  the  post-house,  one  of  the  dirtiest 
Italian  inns  that  I  have  ever  met  with.  The  house 
was  ver}'  ancient,  and  in  a  photograph  would  have 
been  handsome.  Our  bedroom  was  immense,  with  a 
curiously-timbered  roof,  an  antique  carved  wainscot, 
and  walls  hung  with  possibly  mediaeval,  but  unmis- 
takably ragged  and  rotting,  tapestry.  The  landlord 
and  landlady  were  politeness  itself ;  and  a  chamber- 
maid, who,  to  all  appearance,  had  not  been  washed 
from  the  time  of  Perugino,  hastened  to  kindle  a  wood 
fire  on  a  huge  open  hearth.  The  fumes  of  the  faggots 
nearly  choked  us,  to  begin  with  ;  but  when  the  perils 
of  impending  suffocation  passed  away,  we  were  able 
to  enjoy  a  capital  supper  of  fish,  flesh,  and  fowl,  washed 
down  by  some  of  the  rarest  old  wines  I  have  ever 
tasted.     Whether  it  was  Chianti  or  Montefiascone,  I 


100  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

am  not  aware,  but  it  was  undoubtedly  a  vintage  of 
true  "  Est.,  Est.,  Est.''  character. 

Tliere  was  a  gap  in  the  railway  to  Rome,  owing  to 
the  snow ;  and  we  had  to  leave  Perugia  in  a  lumber- 
ing old  bcrline  de  voyage,  painfully  dragged  by  two 
wretched  nags,  which  reminded  me  of  the  steeds  har- 
nessed to  the  calessino  of  my  colleague  in  Garibaldi's 
campaign  in  the  Tyrol.  We  found,  however,  the  rail- 
way available  again  at  a  station  called  Saint  Some- 
thing or  Another,  and  about  six  in  the  evening  arrived 
at  the  railway  terminus  at  Rome.  The  station  was  a 
deplorable  one— small,  inconvenient,  foul,  and  to  all 
appearance,  structurally  tumbling  to  pieces.  In  the 
dirty  Custom  House  the  dirtier  Papal  doganicri  gave 
us  an  infinity  of  trouble  :  tossing  about  our  belongings 
with  their  unwashed  hands,  and  delving  to  the  very 
bottom  of  our  trunks  in  quest  of  any  books  which  we 
might  have  brought  with  us ;  but  I  had  been  fore- 
warned of  the  tricks  and  manners  of  these  gentry,  and 
had  brought  no  literature  whatever  with  me.  Had  I 
had  any  with  me,  the  Custom  House  officers  might, 
perhaps,  have  impounded  my  "  Murray's  Handbook," 
and  assuredly  they  would  have  seized  any  Anglican 
Bible  or  Testament  in  a  passenger's  luggage. 

We  stayed  at  Rome  till  a  fortnight  after  Christmas, 
at  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre,  in  the  Via  Bocca  di  Leone, 
over  against  the  palace  of  the  Duca  Torlonia,  and  close 
to  the  Via  Condotti,  the  Piazza  di  Spagna,  and  the 
Corso.  I  have  been,  perhaps,  twenty  times  to  the 
Eternal  City  since  1866  ;  and  I  have  never  even  thought 
of  staying  at  any  hotel  there  save  the  Albergo  d'ln- 
ghilterra.  Every  day  was  a  new  revelation  and  a  new 
series  of  delights  ;  but  I  may  not  be  guide-bookish,  and 
must  refrain  from  saying  anything  about  the  public 
buildings  or  the  antiquities  of  the  place.  It  will  be  ex- 
cusable, however,  if,  for   the    benefit  of  the  younger 


ROME   AND   NAPLES  lOI 

ofeneration,  I  mark  a  few  of  the  differences  between 
the  Papal  Rome  of  1866  and  the  Monarchical  Rome  of 
1894. 

At  the  first-named  period  the  streets  swarmed  Avith 
monks  and  beggars  :  the  paving  was  bad,  and  the  light- 
ing worse.  The  Papal  police  were  lazy  and  cowardly, 
and  the  Papal  officials  notoriously  venal.  There  was  a 
brigade  of  Papal  Zouaves  enrolled  for  the  purpose  of 
defending  Rome  against  the  Italians,  and  which  con- 
sisted mainly  of  Frenchmen  from  the  South  and  of 
Irishmen.  Some  of  these  sacerdotal  warriors  were 
very  fine  fellows  of  most  martial  mien.  The  Papal 
Zouaves  were  either  succeeded  or  preceded  by 
another  auxiliary  corps  called  the  Antibes  Legion, 
which  had  been  raised  almost  entirely  in  the  southern 
departments  of  France.  The  caffes  were  crowded  at 
night  with  the  Zouaves  and  the  Legionaries,  whose 
principal  amusement  next  to  playing  dominoes,  smok- 
ing, and  coffee  drinking  was  warmly  to  shake  hands 
with  each  other  as  they  entered  or  departed  from  the 
room.  The  frequency  of  these  amicable  salutes  was, 
perhaps,  that  the  majority  of  the  Romans  did  not  care 
to  shake  hands  with  the  gallant  condottieri  of  his  Holi- 
ness Pio  Nono  and  preferred  to  scowl  at  them  ;  mut- 
tering meanwhile  curses,  not  loud  but  deep. 

The  Colosseum,  in  the  last  days  of  Papal  rule,  had 
been,  in  its  more  ruinous  portions,  carefully  under- 
pinned and  buttressed  by  Pius  IX.  and  his  predeces- 
sor Gregory  XVI.;  but  the  arena  had  not  yet  become 
the  scene  of  the  extraordinary  excavations  carried  out 
during  the  last  twenty  years  by  Professor  Lanciani 
and  other  erudite  antiquaries.  Scholars  could  only 
surmise  the  existence  of  the  dens  of  the  wild  beasts  be- 
neath the  arena  ;  nor  had  they  even  surmised  that  the, 
animals  and  many  of  the  parayjhernalia  of  the  amphi- 
theatre were  raised  from  the  subterraneans  by  means 


102  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

of  mechanical  "  lifts."  The  vast  circular  area  of  the 
Colosseum,  as  I  first  saw  it  in  1866,  was  marked  at  in- 
tervals by  the  Stations  of  the  Cross ;  and  on  Sundays 
sermons  were  preached  there  from  a  pulpit  in  the 
centre  by  Franciscan  and  Dominican  friars. 

As  for  the  Cardinals,  the  Princes  of  the  Church,  who 
at  present  are  very  rarely  seen  in  public,  and  then  only 
in  modest  coupes,  drove  about  in  full  scarlet,  in  open 
carriages  and  pair,  and  carriages  and  four ;  the  horses 
decked  with  gilt  and  beribboned  with  scarlet ;  the 
Pope  likewise  often  took  an  aftei-noon  drive  on  the 
Pincian  Hill.  I  can  recall  the  venerable  and  benevo- 
lent Pontifex  Maximus  distinctly  in  ^soutane  or  cassock, 
with  a  cape  of  fine  white  camlet,  and  his  good  old  face 
— from  which  beamed  the  sweetest  of  smiles — sur- 
mounted by  a  shovel-hat  of  crimson  velvet,  worn  fore 
and  aft.  When  the  weather  was  fine  the  Pontiff  would, 
from  time  to  time,  alight  from  his  equipage  and,  fol- 
lowed by  a  couple  of  domestic  prelates,  take  a  little 
walking  exercise,  freely  bestowing  his  blessing  on  the 
crowds  who,  kneeling,  lined  the  sides  of  the  Prom- 
enade. 

The  Papal  money  consisted  of  paper  currency,  which 
was  generally  at  a  discount,  and  of  silver  and  copper 
coins  of  about  equal  value  with  the  franc  and  pieces  of 
fifty  centimes  current  in  France  and  Belgium.  These 
had  superseded  the  old /«<?// and  bajoccJii,  the  older  sciidi 
or  crowns,  and  ducati,  which  were,  gold  coins  I  never 
saw.  Years,  too,  have  passed  since  the  Papal  silver 
has  been  current  in  Italy  ;  yet  so  recently  as  July,  1894, 
I  found  francs  and  half-francs  bearing  the  profile  of 
Pio  Nono  current  in  Brussels.  They  were  shortly 
afterwards  withdrawn  by  Ministerial  decree  from  cir- 
culation in  Belgium. 

For  the  rest,  we  enjoyed  ourselves  to  the  full,  during 
our  stay  at  Rome.     The  charming  young  ladies  who 


ROME   AND   NAPLES  IO3 

were  daughters  of  the  Prebendary  of  St.  Paul's,  and 
were  travelling  with  their  uncle,  came  on  to  Rome  ;  my 
dear  old  friend  Rudolph  Gustavus  Glover,  of  the  War 
Office,  came  out  from  London  to  spend  his  winter  holi- 
day with  us ;  and  what  with  excursions  and  evening 
parties  and  studying  antiquities  and  attending  Pontif- 
ical functions,  the  time  passed  rapidly  and  delightfully. 
During  that  first  Roman  pilgrimage  I  began  a  practice 
which,  from  that  time  to  this,  I  have  made  systematic, 
that  of  purchasing  a  copy  in  oil  of  Guido's  portrait  of 
Beatrice  Cenci — I  mean  the  one  so  called  ;  and  it  has 
long  since  been  proved  to  demonstration  that  the  lovely 
girl  with  the  white  cloth  over  her  head  and  who  is 
looking  at  you  over  her  shoulder  with  eyes,  the  expres- 
sion of  which  you  never  forget,  was  not  the  unfortunate 
Beatrice,  but  a  young  girl,  name  unknown,  who  was 
Guido's  model,  and  whose  face  appears  in  at  least  three 
of  his  pictures.  Some  say  she  was  a  Greek  and  a  pur- 
chased slave  of  the  painter.  The  so-called  Beatrice  is, 
plainly,  not  more  than  fifteen  ;  whereas  it  has  been  irre- 
fragably  proven  that  the  real  Beatrice  was  at  the  time 
of  her  execution  twenty-two,  not  very  good-looking, 
and  a  mother. 

I  have  often  thought,  standing  in  front  of  the  high 
altar  in  the  Church  of  San  Pietro  in  Montorio,  where 
the  luckless  Beatrice  lies  buried,  that  it  is  a  sad  thing 
that  hard-headed  and  unmercifully  vigilant  and  diligent 
professors — the  Italians  and  the  Germans  are  the  great- 
est offenders  in  this  respect — should  devote  their  erudi- 
tion and  their  acumen  to  the  task  of  turninsf  roraan- 
tic  legends  inside  out,  and  showing  beyond  dispute 
that  they  are  mainly  apocryphal.  Why  are  the  lovers 
of  the  picturesque  to  be  robbed  of  their  Beatrice  as 
she  is  pictured,  or  as  they  believe  she  was  pictured,  on 
Guido's  canvas ;  or  as  she  moves  and  breathes  and 
burns  in  Shelley's  deathless  tragedy  ?     From  this  point 


I04  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

of  view  I  can  thoroughly  comprehend  and  sympathise 
with  the  thoroughly  feminine  declaration  of  adherence 
to  the  belief  in  a  long  accepted  myth  made  by  an  Eng- 
lish lady  of  rank  who,  when  she  had  read  the  volume 
in  which  some  inexorable  professor  had  shown  that  the 
legend  of  Beatrice  Cenci  is  in  many  respects  unfounded 
on  fact,  exclaimed  :  "  The  book  is  all  very  well,  but  it 
is  not  true  ;  it  can't  be  true,  and  it  sJiant  be  triiey  That 
"  shan't  be  true  "  was  gloriously  womanly. 

But  I  have  to  say  something  about  that  practice  of 
mine  in  connection  with  the  hapless  daughter  of  the 
wicked  Francesco  Cenci.  I  have  said  that  every  time 
I  visit  Rome  I  buy  an  unframed  portrait  of  the  pseudo 
Beatrice,  never  giving  more  than  the  sum  which  I  paid 
for  the  first  one,  and  I  have  now,  I  think,  either  four- 
teen or  fifteen  of  these  works  of  art.  I  do  not  at  all 
know  what  I  shall  do  with  them  ;  if  I  have  them  framed 
my  friends  will  laugh  at  me.  I  think  that  eventually  I 
shall  have  them  made  into  a  screen,  which  will  certainly 
be  unique  if  it  have  no  other  good  quality.  Most  peo- 
ple, I  apprehend,  have  their  whims  and  oddities,  which 
are  pardonable  perhaps  if  they  do  not  do  any  harm  to 
anybody.  JTa?  avQpwKo<i  e^^^ei  rov  rpeWov  rov.  (Every 
man  has  his  craze.)  Do  you  remember  the  charming 
passage  in  Victor  Hugo's  "  Rhin,"  where,  in  a  market- 
place of  a  German  town,  he  saw  such  a  pretty  assort- 
ment of  little  sucking  pigs,  that  he  would  have  liked, 
so  he  confesses,  to  have  bought  the  whole  lot  if  he  had 
only  known  what  to  do  with  the  juvenile  porkers  when 
they  were  delivered  at  his  hotel. 

In  mid-January  we  went  from  Rome  to  Naples ;  and 
had  the  pleasure  one  Sunday  of  having  Pompei  entirely 
to  ourselves,  with  the  exception  of  a  ragged  minstrel 
of  the  lazzarone  order,  who,  sitting  on  one  of  the  upper 
grades  of  the  ruined  theatre,  obliged  us  with  '■'■  Addio  ! 
Bella  Napoli^'  not  forgetting  to  bring  in  Santa  Lucia  at 


ROME   AND   NAPLES  10$ 

the  conclusion  of  each  verse,  accompanying  himself  on 
the  guitar.  After  that  I  favoured  him  with  a  speech 
in  English  on  the  ancient  Roman  drama,  whereupon 
he  took  to  flight  dismayed,  and  we  were  alone — quite 
alone,  superbly  alone — in  this  marvellous  city  of  the 
dead.  We  took  a  Messageries  steamer  from  Naples  to 
Marseilles ;  the  weather  was  abominably  stormy  ;  the 
captain  of  the  Messageries  was  not  a  very  adventurous 
mariner,  and  we  put  in  to  spend  the  night  at  no  less 
than  four  ports,  Civita  Vecchia,  Leghorn,  Porto  Fer- 
rajo,  and  Hyeres.  Altogether,  we  were  six  days  mak- 
ing the  voyage  ;  and  when  1  mildly  complained  to  the 
captain  of  what  I  thought  the  unnecessary  delay,  he 
turned  brusquely  on  me,  saying  :  "  Dc  quoi  vous plaigncz- 
vous?  Vous  ctcs  noiirriy  Yes,  we  were  nourished,  al- 
though perhaps  there  might  have  been  a  little  less 
garlic  in  the  cookery  and  a  little  more  flavour  in  the 
vin  ordinaire. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE   INTERNATIONAL   EXHIBITION   OF   '6/ 

When  we  arrived  in  Marseilles  I  sent  my  wife  back  to 
England  to  see  her  friends  and  equip  herself,  if  need 
be,  for  a  fresh  journey  ;  while  I  went  on  to  Paris,  and 
took  up  my  quarters  at  the  Hotel  Windsor,  in  the  Rue 
de  Rivoli,  where,  phenomenal  to  relate,  the  obliging 
landlord  let  me  have  a  suite  of  three  rooms  on  the  en- 
tresol at  the  extraordinary  cheap  rate  of  fifteen  francs 
a  day.  I  cite  this  tariff  as  phenomenal,  because  the 
great  International  Exhibition  of  1867  was  imminent. 
The  Second  Empire  was  in  its  autumnal  splendour ; 
and  although  the  Exposition  was  not  to  open  until 
May,  Paris  was  already  thronged  with  visitors  from 
every  quarter  of  the  globe.  To  be  sure,  I  told  the 
complaisant  landlord,  M.  Blard,  that  I  intended  to  oc- 
cupy the  suite  of  rooms  for  some  months;  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  was  a  tenant  of  them  from  May  till 
September.  The  rooms  were  very  dark,  but  nicely 
furnished ;  and  there  was  happily  no  table  d'hote  in 
the  hotel,  so  you  were  not  expected  even  to  lunch  or 
to  dine  in  the  house.  Comfortable  quarters,  cafe  an 
lait  in  the  morning,  and  for  the  rest  full  liberty  to 
do  what  you  liked  in  the  matter  of  the  provand — 
that  is  my  bean  ideal  of  comfort  in  a  continental 
hotel.  I  have  always  hated  tables  d'Jiote  for  two  rea- 
sons, first,  you  are  often  obliged  to  sit  at  dinner  next 
to  people  whom  you  would  certainly  not  ask  to  dine 
with  you  ;  and  next,  because  among  the  rudest  and 
generally  the    most   objectionable  people  that  I   have 


THE   INTERNATIONAL   EXHIBITION   OF   '6/  lO/ 

ever  met  with  on  my  travels,  the  folks  whom  I  may 
call  English  table  dliote  trippers  are  perhaps  the  most 
disagreeable. 

There  w^as  plenty  to  see  in  the  Champ  de  Mars  even 
before  the  Exhibition  opened.  The  building  was  com- 
pleted, but  as  yet  only  partially  furnished.  It  was  a 
gigantic  structure  of  glass  and  iron ;  but  there  was 
some  ingenuity  in  the  design  of  M.  Le  Play,  al- 
though outwardly,  the  Exhibition  had  a  mean  and 
stunted  aspect.  The  vast  series  of  concentric  ellipses 
in  the  Champ  de  Mars  offered  all  conceivable  facili- 
ties to  visitors  for  a  proper  display  of  their  wares. 
It  was  perfectly  easy  both  to  get  into  and  out  of  the 
place,  and  nobody  could  lose  his  way.  The  radiating 
streets  which  converged  to  the  interior  gardens,  and 
the  great  raised  platform  which  ran  right  round  to  the 
machine  galleries,  were  all  original  ideas,  ingenious  in 
conception,  and  skilfully  worked  out.  The  Emperor 
Napoleon  III.  took  from  the  outset  the  liveliest  inter- 
est in  the  enterprise,  and  watched  with  the  deepest 
solicitude  over  its  development.  He  frequently  vis- 
ited the  Champ  de  Mars  in  the  early  spring ;  and 
almost  every  afternoon  during  the  heyday  of  the  Ex- 
position, Caesar,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  an  aide-de- 
camp, might  have  been  seen  strolling  from  stall  to 
stall  examining,  criticising,  praising,  and  purchasing 
objects  of  beauty  or  raritv.  To  be  sure,  the  Em- 
peror did  not  think  much  of  the  building  as  an  ar- 
tistic achievement ;  and  when  it  was  completed,  he 
complimented  M.  Le  Play  on  having  built  him  a 
"grandiose  gasometer." 

The  management  of  this  gigantic  enterprise  was  en- 
trusted to  a  body  of  Imperial  Commissioners,  presided 
over  in  the  first  instance  by  Prince  Napoleon,  who, 
however,  early  retired  from  his  post.  This  was  at  the 
outset  a  heavy  blow  and  sore  discouragement,  for  the 


I08  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


Prince,  one  of  the  cleverest  of  men,  was  no  merely 
ornamental  President;  his  co-operation,  his  counsels, 
and  his  suggestions  had  been  eminently  serviceable 
in  1855,  '^"d  might  have  been  of  even  greater  value  in 
1867. 

The  Commissioners  turned  out  to  be  a  very  rapa- 
cious, grasping  and  greedy  body,  who  were  constantly 
quarrelling  with  the  Foreign  Commissioners,  and  do- 
inir  their  best  to  extort  more  and  more  cash  from  the 
concessionnaircs  of  the  different  shows  and  places  of  re- 
freshment in  the  annexes.  Foremost  among  the  Eng- 
lish Commissioners  was  Mr.  Henry  Cole— I  forget 
whether  he  had  been  yet  knighted  —  whom  I  had 
known  ever  since  the  Hyde  Park  Exhibition  of  185 1. 
He  was  extremely  serviceable  to  me,  and  introduced 
me  to  the  whole  of  the  Foreign  Commissioners  sitting 
in  solemn  confabulation.  Seldom  has  there  lived  a 
more  resourceful,  ingenious  official  than  "  Old  King 
Cole,"  as  they  used  to  call  him  at  South  Kensington ; 
and  with  surprising  skill  and  alacrity  did  he  respond 
to  the  invitation  of  the  Imperial  Commissioners  to 
exhibit  something  which  might  serve  as  a  compara- 
tive history  of  England  during  the  last  five-and-twenty 

years. 

With  rare  industry,  patience  and  research  he  brought 
together  that  which  might  be  called  a  complete  pano- 
rama of  English  literature  and  journalism.  On  an  ar- 
ray of  screens  in  the  English  Department  he  displayed 
an  almost  innumerable  series  of  newspapers,  maga- 
zines, reviews,  and  serial  publications  of  every  imagi- 
nable form,  type,  character,  size  and  price,  ranging 
from  the  quarterlies  and  the  half-crown  and  shilling 
magazines  down  to  the  humble  catch-pennies  of  Seven 
Dials — all  the  London  and  all  the  provincial  papers, 
the  most  rubbishing  farthing  ballads;  all  the  alma- 
nacks, all  the  puffing  pamphlets  of  advertising  tailors 


THE   INTERNATIONAL   EXHIBITION   OF   '6/  IO9 


and  hatters  found  a  place  in  this  unique  collection. 
Is  it  yet  extant,  I  wonder,  at  South  Kensington,  or 
elsewhere  ? 

The  Exposition  was  opened  by  the  Emperor  and 
Empress  in  person  ;  and  it  was  pleasant  to  notice  the 
cordial  greeting  given  by  the  Imperial  couple  to  the 
more  conspicuous  among  the  English  visitors  present : 
especially  the  late  Lord  Houghton,  with  whom  both 
the  Emperor  and  Empress  shook  hands.  The  brill- 
iant, cultured,  and  amiable  peer,  whose  son  is  now 
Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  passed  the  season  in  Paris, 
where  he  had  a  charming  suite  of  apartments  in  the 
Avenue  des  Champs  Elysees,  where  he  gave  a  series  of 
sparkling  dejeuners  a  la  fourchctte  to  fashionable,  lite- 
rary, and  artistic  notabilities.  There  I  met  Edmond 
About,  Taine,  Villemessant  of  the  Figaro,  Albert  Wolff 
and  Gustave  Dore.  Singular  to  relate,  I  did  not  find 
among  Lord  Houghton's  guests  either  Alexandre 
Dumas  the  Elder  or  the  Younger. 

The  last  had  been,  as  I  have  already  said,  a  school- 
fellow of  mine  ;  and  I  was  frequently  his  companion 
when  his  father  took  us  out  for  a  Sunday  outing.  The 
elder  Alexandre  did  not  die  until  1871  ;  the  younger 
Alexandre  still  lives,  a  prosperous  gentleman,  yet  from 
the  year  1840,  although  I  often  went  to  Paris,  and  con- 
sorted with  French  journalists  and  men  of  letters,  I 
never  from  my  schoolboy  days  downwards  set  eyes 
either  on  the  author  of  "  Monte  Cristo,"  or  on  the 
writer  of  "  La  Dame  aux  Camelias." 

One  of  the  most  noteworthy  features  of  the  Exhi- 
bition of  1867  was  its  commissariat.  There  were  innu- 
merable cafe's  and  restaurants,  not  only  in  the  annexes, 
but  in  the  outer  zone  of  the  building  itself ;  where 
Messrs.  Spiers  and  Pond  had  established  a  great 
restaurant  for  the  "  exhibition,"  if  I  may  put  it  so,  of 
the  much-calumniated  art  of  English  cookery.     There 


no       LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

was  a  buffet,  too,  at  which  officiated  a  number  of  hand- 
some barmaids,  who  were  the  objects  of  enthusiastic 
admiration  on  the  part  of  the  French  visitors,  who 
bestowed  a  liberal  amount  of  patronage  on  English 
roast  beef,  English  legs  of  mutton,  and,  pardon  the 
paradox,  English  Irish  stew.  There  was  a  Russian 
restaurant,  too,  where  you  could  obtain  stclii,  or  cab- 
bage soup,  sturgeon  and  cotclettcs  a  la  Pojarski.  There 
was  an  American  restaurant,  where  canvas-back  ducks, 
terrapin,  gumbo  soup,  pork  and  beans,  succotash  and 
pumpkin  pie  were  served  ;  and  there  was  even  a  Turk- 
ish restaurant,  where  sham  Orientals  from  the  Fau- 
bourg St.  Denis  brought  you  sham  pilafs  and  sham 
kebobs  washed  down  by  sham  sherbet. 

In  some  of  the  annexes  of  the  Exhibition  grounds 
the  humorous  element  was  pleasantly  marked.  Mr. 
Cole,  seconded  by  an  able  official  connected  with 
South  Kensington,  and  whose  recent  decease  as  Sir 
Philip  Cunliffe  Owen  a  host  of  friends  have  mourned, 
caused  to  be  erected  a  strange  structure,  which  Avas 
termed  by  the  English  Commission  the  "Test  House," 
where  everything  that  could  conduce  to  the  internal 
decoration  and  external  convenience  of  a  dwelling- 
house  was  experimentally  exhibited.  The  French  gave 
this  building  the  sobriquet  of  "  Le  Cottage  Anglais,"  or 
more  irreverently  they  nicknamed  it  "  Le  Goddam," 
and  they  persisted  in  regarding  it  as  a  typical  speci- 
men of  English  domestic  architecture.  The  irreverent 
sobriquet  just  cited  is  a  very  old  Gallo-Anglicism. 
Five-and-fifty  years  ago  it  was  habitually  given  me  by  , 
my  schoolfellows  at  the  Pension  Henon  ;  but  I  read 
that  more  than  four  hundred  years  since  Joan  of  Arc 
used  to  allude  contemptuously  to  "  Les  Goddams 
Anglais."  Thus  it  would  appear  that  Marlborough's 
soldiers  were  not  the  first  who  "  swore  terribly  "  in 
their  continental  campaigns. 


THE   INTERNATIONAL   EXHIBITION   OF   '6/  III 

The  "  Test  House  "  was  certainly  a  very  grotesquely 
incongruous  pile  of  chimney-pots,  cowls,  gutters,  drain- 
pipes, ornamental  tiles,  terra-cotta  mouldings,  tessel- 
lated pavements,  revolving  shutters,  ventilators,  wire 
fences,  improved  cooking-stoves,  spring  latchets,  pat- 
ent bolts,  and  door  handles  up-to-date.  But  it  an- 
swered its  purpose  and  was  true  to  its  real  title,  for 
outside  and  inside  its  walls  all  that  ingenious  manu- 
facturers could  do  to  perfect  the  thoroughly  British 
institution  known  as  "  comfort  "  could  be  applied  and 
tested. 

There  was  not,  I  think,  any  German  restaurant  in 
the  grounds  ;  but  there  were  plenty  of  beer  caftfs,  the 
keepers  of  which  were  periodically  harried  and  heckled 
by  the  Imperial  Commissioners,  who,  on  one  occasion, 
to  satisfy  the  greed  of  the  French  concessionnaires  of 
seats,  seized  all  the  chairs  in  the  foreign  cafes  at  one 
fell  swoop,  so  that  the  unhappy  consumers  of  Bavarian 
and  Lager  beer  had  to  drink  their  liquor  standing. 
An  indignation  meeting  of  these  and  other  aggrieved 
persons  was  held  one  evening  in  the  grounds,  and  I 
was  intensely  amused  at  listening  to  the  impassioned 
oratory  of  one  of  the  foreign  brasserie  keepers,  a  cer- 
tain Baron  B .     There  are  persons  who,  as  in  the 

case  of  the  two  Alexandre  Dumas',  have  been  to  me 
lines  running  parallel  but  never  meeting,  and  it  has 
been  my  fortune  to  light  on  people  personally  almost 
strangers  to  me,  but  whom  I  have  constantly  met  dur- 
ing a  long  succession  of  years.  Baron  B ,  of  Bel- 
gian extraction,  I  had  met  first  at  St.  Petersburg  ;  years 
afterwards  I  lighted  on  him  at  New  York.  Then 
ag-ain  I  found  him  at  Monaco.  On  another  occasion 
he  turned  up  at  Algiers,  and  in  1867  I  chanced  on  him 
in  the  Champ  de  Mars. 

Since  then  I  have  been  aware  of  him  at  Constanti- 
nople and  at  Monte  Carlo,  and  1  am  only  amazed  that 


112  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

I  have  not  come  across  him  at  San  Francisco,  at  Hono- 
lulu, in  Australia  or  in  India.  When  I  meet  him,  he 
shakes  hands,  and  observing-  "  Coviuie  on  sc  rencontre  !  " 
smiles,  bows,  and  departs.  He  has  played  many  parts ; 
he  has  been  to  my  knowledge  a  scientific  traveller,  a 
glove-buyer  for  a  firm  of  Manchester  warehousemen 
in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  the  manager  of  a  music-hall, 
an  agent  for  a  manufacturer  of  sewing-machines,  and 
the  keeper  of  a  brasserie. 

Of  the  general  contents  of  the  Exhibition  I  forbear 
to  say  anything  in  detail.  Were  I  to  enlarge  on  the 
wonders  of  art  and  industry  displayed  in  this  colossal 
bazaar,  I  should  be  writing  dismally  ancient  history ; 
and  besides  the  glories  of  the  Second  French  Exposi- 
tion temple  have  been  eclipsed  by  those  of  the  Third 
and  Fourth,  all  of  which  I  suppose  will  again  have  to 
pale  their  fires  before  the  splendour  of  the  next  Uni- 
versal Exhibition  in  Paris  which  the  world  is  promised 
or  threatened  with.  Still  certain  things  took  place  be- 
tween May  and  October  which  it  was  my  business  to 
chronicle,  and  recurrence  to  which  may  not  be  unin- 
teresting. I  was  present  at  the  distribution  of  prizes 
by  Napoleon  III.,  a  ceremony  which  took  place  in  the 
Palais  de  ITndustrie  in  the  Champs  Elysees.  In  the 
exceptionally  brilliant  company  gathered  round  the 
Emperor  on  this  occasion  were  the  Sultan  of  Turkey, 
Abdul  Aziz,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  Prince  Humbert  of 
Savoy,  now  King  of  Italy,  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia, 
Prince  Louis  of  Hesse,  the  Duke  of  Cambridge,  and  a 
son  of  the  Tykoon  of  Japan.  The  eldest  daughter  of 
Queen  Victoria  and  of  England,  the  Crown  Princess 
of  Prussia,  was  also  in  that  superb  gathering.  There 
was  a  pretty  incident  during  the  proceedings  in  the 
tremendous  burst  of  applause  which  greeted  the  con- 
cession of  Grand  Prizes,  first  by  His  Majesty  Napoleon 
III.   as   the   designer   of   dwellings   for   the    working 


THE   INTERNATIONAL   EXHIBITION   OF   '6/  II3 

classes — a  prize  which  was  gracefully  accepted  on  be- 
half of  his  papa  by  the  Prince  Imperial  ;  and  next  by 
the  cordial  storms  of  plaudits  on  the  part  of  the  French 
which  accompanied  the  bestowal  of  a  Grand  Prize  on 
M.  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps,  the  enterprising  promoter 
of  the  Suez  Canal.  Poor  people  !  poor  people  !  The 
distribution  of  prizes  was  to  be  followed  only  three 
years  later  by  Sedan  ;  and  the  sequel  to  Suez  was  to 
be  Panama.  Is  it  trite,  is  it  jejune  to  quote  in  this 
connection  the  mournful  words  of  Gray  ? 

Ambition  this  shall  tempt  to  rise, 

Then  whirl  the  wretch  from  high, 
To  bitter  Scorn  a  sacrifice. 

And  grinning  Infamy. 
The  stings  of  Falsehood  those  shall  try. 
And  hard  Unkindness'  alter'd  eye. 
That  mocks  the  tear  it  forced  to  flow  ; 
And  keen  Remorse  with  blood  defiled. 
And  moody  Madness  laughing  wild 

Amid  severest  woe. 

The  ups  and  downs  of  man  and  womankind  that  I 
have  seen  during  the  last  forty  years  !  Royal,  Imperial 
crowns  won  and  lost ;  picked  up  from  the  gutter  or 
pilfered  from  the  right  owners ;  beggars  set  upon 
horseback  to  be  afterwards  tilted  out  of  the  saddle  and 
rolled  in  the  mud  ;  speculators  hailed  one  day  as  bene- 
factors of  their  species,  and  the  next  day  denounced  as 
swindlers  and  impostors  ;  republics  dismembered  and 
reunited  ;  petty  principalities  swollen  into  many  mill- 
ion peopled  monarchies  ;  Crowned  Heads  and  Presi- 
dents deified  and  then  assassinated  ;  what  political  up- 
heavals have  I  not  witnessed,  what  social  eruptions 
have  I  not  watched  ?  And  all  this  while  I  have  been 
tranquilly  earning  my  bread  by  scribbling  "  copy  "  for 
a  newspaper. 

II.— 8 


CHAPTER   XLI 

suLtan  and  tsar 

The  Exhibition  was  at  its  height  when  I  travelled 
from  Paris  to  Toulon  to  witness  the  arrival  of  the  Sul- 
tan Abdul  Aziz,  and  in  a  journalistic  capacity  accom- 
pany the  Commander  of  the  Faithful  to  Paris.  Our 
resident  correspondent  in  the  French  capital  had  been 
for  some  years  Mr.  Felix  Whitehurst,  a  light  and'pleas- 
ant  writer  who  was  always  au  coiirant  with  everything 
that  was  passing  in  the  political  and  fashionable  world, 
and  whose  conversation  in  private  life  was  full  of  gay 
persiflage  and  pleasant  anecdote.  He  was  a  man  who 
always  looked  on  the  sunny  side  of  things  ;  his  main 
pursuit  in  life  was  la  bagatelle ;  and  I  remember  his 
telling  me  once  that  his  only  trouble  in  the  world  was 
to  get  the  seam  of  his  silk  stocking  precisely  in  the 
middle  of  the  calf  of  his  leg  when  he  was  dressing  for 
a  Court  ball.  An  Imperial  Court  ball,  bien  entendii ; 
for  Felix  Whitehurst  was  in  the  best  of  good  graces 
both  at  the  Tuileries  and  Palais  Royal  and  was  equally 
a  favourite  with  the  Emperor  and  his  cousin  Prince 
Jerome  Napoleon.  Through  Whitehurst's  kindly  in- 
termediary I  obtained  permission  to  travel  on  board 
the  Imperial  train,  and  duly  witnessed  the  disembarka- 
tion of  the  Sultan,  who  was  attended  by  a  host  of 
pashas,  beys,  and  effendis,  who  for  the  nonce  had  re- 
linquished their  ordinary  plain  black  single-breasted 
surtouts  and  appeared  in  gorgeous  uniforms  with 
gold  embroidery.  The  French  official  to  whom  the 
management  of  the  journey  was  entrusted  was  a  cer- 


SULTAN   AND   TSAR  II5 


tain  M.  Charles  Filon,  special  travelling  courier  to  the 
Emperor  and  Empress,  and  who,  I  believe,  had  been 
in  the  service  of  Louis  Napoleon  when  he  was  in  cap- 
tivity in  the  fortress  of  Ham.  I  got  to  Toulon  safely, 
having  travelled  very  comfortably  in  a  coupe  with  an 
Imperial  Vice- Chamberlain,  but  the  next  morning 
when  the  express  started  for  Paris,  I  stayed  talking 
with  a  friend  on  the  platform  and  suddenly  the  train 
began  to  move. 

"Envoiture!  en  voitiire  ! ''  exclaimed  a  guard,  giv- 
ing me  at  the  same  time  a  friendly  push.  There  was 
an  open  door  ;  and  through  that  door  I  stumbled  into 
a  first-class  carriage  in  which  there  was  fortunately 
one  vacant  seat.  In  a  few  minutes  afterwards  I  dis- 
covered, first  to  my  horror,  and  next  to  my  amuse- 
ment, and  eventually  to  my  edification,  that  I  had  fall- 
en among  flunkeys. 

My  seven  travelling  companions  were  four  Imperial 
footmen,  the  body-servant  of  the  Marquis  de  Gallifet, 
an  assistant  cook  at  the  Tuileries,  and  a  Court  hair- 
dresser. What  would  the  illustrious  chroniclers  ot 
the  sayings  and  doings  of  Mr.  James  Yellowplush  and 
Mr.  Smawker  have  given  to  have  been  the  companions, 
or  the  interlocutors  of  these  eminent  creatures  in  pow- 
der and  plush  ?  There  were  no  second-  or  third-class 
compartments  attached  to  the  train  ;  so  that  was  why 
the  lacqueys,  the  cook,  and  the  hair-dresser  travelled 
first-class. 

They  were  all  very  polite  to  me,  and  in  a  festive 
sense  were  very  good  fellows  ;  but  never  had  it  been 
my  chance  to  encounter  a  squad  of  such  shameless 
marauders  as  these  flunkeys  turned  out  to  be.  No 
charge  was  made  for  refreshments  at  the  buffets  on 
the  line,  and  at  Lyons,  at  Marseilles,  and  at  Nice  the 
liveried  dacoits  swept  everything  edible  and  potable 
before  them.     They   ate  and  drank  as  much  as  ever 


Il6  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

they  could,  and  carried  off  with  them  as  much  as  their 
pockets  and  their  hands  could  carry.  Bottles  of  wine, 
cold  pies,  cigars,  cold  roast  fowls,  cakes  of  soap,  and 
flasks  of  eau -de -cologne  from  the  dressing-rooms  — 
nothino-  came  amiss  to  these  freebooters.  Their  con- 
versation  was  to  me  delightful ;  and  ere  long  I  was 
fain  to  confess  that  there  was  not  one-  touch  of  exag- 
geration in  the  pictures  of  flunkeys  drawn  by  Dickens 
and  Thackeray. 

We  left  Toulon  at  five  in  the  afternoon  and  halted 
at  Lyons  at  early  morning.  Our  stay  was  of  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  duration  ;  for  a  good  many  things 
had  to  be  done.  There  was  the  inevitable  cafe  au  lait 
to  begin  with  ;  and  I  promise  you  that  my  friends  the 
flunkeys  did  not  omit  to  loot  as  many  lumps  of  sugar 
as  they  could  secrete.  Then  a  Turk  in  a  fez  ran  wildly 
to  and  fro  on  the  platform  exclaiming  that  his  High- 
ness the  Sultan  required  a  foot-bath.  There  would 
not  appear  to  have  been  such  an  article  available  at 
the  Lyons  terminus  ;  but  a  convenient  substitute  for  a 
bain  de  pied  was  found  in  a  large  soup  tureen.  Ere  we 
left  the  station  I  heard  one  more  delicious  utterance  of 
flunkeyism.  One  of  my  fellow-travellers  asked  what 
had  become  of  "  Gallifet."  "  //  est  en  train,'"  replied 
another  lacquey,  "  de  eirer  /es  bottes  de  son  honinie." 
Poor  Marquis  de  Gallifet ! 

Moliere  was  outdone.  Les  Pre'cieuses  Ridictdes  had 
been  improved  upon,  the  man  had  become  the  marquis 
and  the  marquis  a  man.  Jodelet  and  Mascarille  had 
come  to  life  again.  And  so  no  more  of  the  Sultan 
Abdul  Aziz,  whose  eventful  fate  it  was  to  be  deposed 
and  soon  afterwards  to  die  b}^  his  own  hand.  I  never 
set  up  as  a  political  prophet  ;  but  in  the  case  of  this 
particular  Padishah  I  hazarded  a  prediction  which  b}' 
the  strangest  of  accidents  was  verified  by  the  event. 
When   the  news   of  the    Sultan's  deposition   reached 


SULTAN    AND    TSAR  II7 


England,  I  was  writing  a  weekly  page  of  paragraphs 
entitled  "  Echoes  of  the  Week,"  in  the  Illustrated  Lon- 
don News  ;  and  in  one  of  these  paragraphs  I  remarked 
that  the  misfortunes  of  Abdul  Aziz  might  possibly  cul- 
minate in  "  scissor-cide."  It  was  with  a  pair  of  scissors 
borrowed  from  his  mother  to  trim  his  beard  withal 
that  the  Sultan  Abdul  Aziz  destroyed  himself. 

Another  memorable  event  took  place  during  the 
Exposition  season.  Early  in  June  the  Tsar  Alexander 
II.  of  Russia  visited  Paris.  On  the  6th  of  June  while 
driving  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  the  Autocrat  was  fired 
at  by  a  half  -  crazy  Pole  called  Berezowski,  whose 
weapon  was  a  half  worn-out  horse  pistol.  The  bullet, 
however,  did  find  a  billet ;  it  wounded  in  the  nostril 
the  horse  ridden  by  M.  Raimbault,  one  of  the  Imperial 
equerries  in  attendance  on  the  Tsar.  The  would-be 
assassin  was  at  once  seized  by  a  crowd  of  detectives 
in  plain  clothes,  who  during  the  Second  Empire  always 
clustered  thickly  round  the  carriages  of  Imperial  and 
Royal  personages.  A  four-wheeled  cab  was  hailed, 
"Berezowski  was  thrust  into  it  by  three  sergents  dc  ville, 
while  at  least  a  dozen  police  agents  hung  on  behind, 
sat  on  the  box  or  sprawled  on  the  roof  of  the  vehicle. 
I  was  present  a  short  time  afterwards  at  the  trial  of 
the  half-demented  Pole,  which  took  place  before  the 
Court  of  Assizes  of  the  Seine.  Cards  of  admission 
were  extremely  difficult  to  procure  even  by  journal- 
ists ;  but  Felix  Whitehurst  made  interest  with  the 
Minister  of  Justice  and  procured  me  the  much-coveted 
ticket. 

The  court  was  crowded  almost  to  suffocation  ;  and 
it  was  a  broiling  July  day.  Berezowski  was  brought 
into  court  and  seated  between  two  gendarmes  on  the 
banc  des  accuses.  He  was  a  little,  shrivelled,  bird-faced 
man  with  a  cropped  head  of  hair  and  a  yellowish  com- 
plexion.    His  interrogatory  by  the   President  of  the 


Il8  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

Tribunal  was  not  particularly  instructive  ;  since  he 
spoke  very  bad  French,  and  in  almost  inaudible  tones. 
One  of  his  replies,  however,  I  managed  to  hear.  He 
said  that  he  had  been  driven  to  commit  his  sanguinary 
crime  through  la  miser e ;  that  is  the  reason  you  will 
remember  that  Figaro  in  Beaumarchais's  comedy  ad- 
duced for  turning  barber. 

But  Berezowski's  plea  in  extenuation  of  his  crime 
did  not  by  any  means  suit  the  book,  or  rather  the  brief 
of  the  prisoner's  eloquent  although  somewhat  stagey 
advocate,  Maitre  Emmanuel  Arago,  who  when  his  turn 
came  to  reply  to  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution  de- 
livered a  long  and  violent  tirade  against  the  despotism, 
the  cruelty,  and  the  treachery  of  Russia  especially 
with  regard  to  Poland.  He  spoke  of  Siberia,  and  the 
knout,  of  Polish  princesses  chained  to  wheelbarrows, 
and  Polish  counts  slaving  in  the  mines  ;  he  dwelt  on 
the  red-herring  torture,  the  electric  battery  torture, 
the  half  drowning  torture,  and  other  amenities  of  Rus- 
sian criminal  jurisprudence;  and  then,  drawing  him- 
self up  to  his  full  height  and  adopting  the  trick  com-' 
mon  at  the  French  bar  of  pulling  up  the  cuff  of  his 
coat  until  about  eight  inches  of  shirt  sleeve  were  re- 
vealed, he  thundered  forth  :  "  Yes,  M.  le  President, 
yes,  messieurs  Ics  Jiire's,  the  wretched  man  in  the  dock 
had  two  mothers:  sa  propre  mere  and  his  beloved  na- 
tive country  ;  and  the  Tsar  of  Russia  has  outraged 
them  both  ;  for  Berezowski's  mother  died  of  grief,  and 
the  ruthless  Emperor  has  murdered  Poland."  I  was 
sitting  close  to  the  jury-box  when  this  startling  per- 
oration was  pronounced  ;  and  I  heard  one  of  the  jury- 
men remark  to  his  next  neighbour :  "  Apres  ces  belles 
paroles  la  tete  du  maUieureux  7ie  tombera  pas''  Nor 
after  the  "  beautiful  Avords  "  uttered  on  his  behalf  by 
his  counsel  did  the  head  of  Berezowski  fall  beneath 
the  axe  of  the  guillotine.     A  sympathising  jury  deliv- 


SULTAN   AND   TSAR  II9 

ered  a  verdict  of  guilty  with  extenuating  circum- 
stances, and  the  Pole  was  sentenced  to  penal  servitude 
for  life. 

It  happened  that  in  1886  I  was  telling  the  story  of 
his  trial  in  a  lecture  which  I  delivered  at  Sydney, 
New  South  Wales ;  and  when  I  came  to  the  verdict  of 
the  jury  a  voice  from  the  middle  of  the  hall  cried  out: 
"  I  saw  Berezowski  last  week :  he  is  employed  as  an 
assistant  baker  at  L'lle  Nou."  The  next  day  the 
owner  of  the  voice  called  on  me,  and  he  turned  out  to 
be  Her  Britannic  Majesty's  Consul  at  Noumea  in  New 
Caledonia.  One  would  have  thought  that  at  the  down- 
fall of  the  Second  Empire,  the  Republican  Government 
would  have  liberated  Berezowski ;  but  they  kept  him 
in  durance  from  1867  to  1886;  and  for  aught  I  know 
he  may  be  baking  bread  for  the  convicts  at  L'lle  Nou 
now. 

One  had  to  work  pretty  hard  as  a  special  corre- 
spondent in  those  days.  It  was  five  o'clock  before  the 
verdict  was  delivered  ;  and  it  was  ten  p.m.  before  with- 
out either  bite  or  sup,  but  with  the  aid  of  much  tobac- 
co I  had  got  through  three  columns  of  copy.  I  drove 
down  in  a  victoria  to  the  old  General  Post  Office  in 
the  Rue  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  to  post  my  letter  my- 
self ;  so  that  it  should  be  in  time  for  the  morning  mail, 
and  I  was  in  such  a  hurry  to  place  the  packet  in  the 
letter-box,  and  I  jumped  so  suddenly  from  the  carriage 
that  the  sentinel  on  duty  was  alarmed,  and  presenting 
his  bayonet  at  me  cried  menacingly  :  "  Qui  vive  ?  "  I 
explained  matters  to  him,  but  my  explanation  did  not 
seem  to  satisfy  him  ;  and  a  scrgcnt  de  ville  coming  up, 
the  sentinel,  a  little,  stunted  creature  in  a  blue  great 
coat  and  with  baggy  crimson  trousers  tucked  up  under 
his  white  gaitered  shoes,  accused  me  of  assaulting  him. 
I  had  only  frightened  him.  Fortunately  I  had  my 
passport  and  some    visiting  cards  with   me ;  and  the 


I20  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

sergcmt  dc  ville  chancing  to  be  a  sensible  fellow  bade 
me  go  about  my  business,  laughing  at  the  sentinel, 
who  looked  remarkably  like  a  monkey  I  had  once  seen 
on  Richmond  Hill  bestriding  a  Newfoundland  dog  in 
the  charge  of  a  German  showman.  I  wonder  that  the 
little  man  in  the  red  trousers  did  not  charge  the  scr- 
gent  dc  ville,  but  perhaps  his  musket  and  bayonet  were 
too  heavy  for  him  to  make  efficient  use  of  those  lethal 
weapons. 

"  Come  to  Erfurt,"  wrote  Napoleon  the  Great  to 
Talma  the  tragedian,  "  and  you  shall  play  before  a  pit 
full  of  kings."  The  front  row  of  the  stalls  so  to  speak 
at  the  Grand  Theatre  of  the  Paris  Exhibition  of  1867 
was  full  of  crowned  heads  and  heirs  to  thrones.  In 
addition  to  the  Royalties  I  have  already  mentioned, 
the  French  metropolis  was  visited  between  May  and 
November  by  the  Kings  of  Greece,  Belgium,  and 
Sweden.  Ismail  Pacha,  Viceroy  of  Egypt,  was  also  a 
guest  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon.  Some  years  after- 
wards I  dined  in  the  company  of  Ismail — not  bankrupt 
but  deposed  and  banished — at  the  Garrick  Club,  Lon- 
don. The  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  of  Austria  was 
another  potentate  who  visited  this  astonishing  show 
and  enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  Ccesar.  I  have  2-eserved 
for  the  last  mention  of  the  visit  of  the  Crown  Prince 
of  Prussia,  afterwards  William  I.,  seventh  King  of  Prus- 
sia and  first  German  Emperor.  That  chivalrous  sov- 
ereign was  born  in  1797.  He  began  his  military  train- 
ing when  he  was  quite  a  child  ;  and  in  his  fourteenth 
year  he  was  promoted  to  the  rank  of  second  lieuten- 
ant. In  18 1 3  he  was  appointed  aide-de-camp  to  his 
father  at  the  allied  head-quarters  at  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main.  It  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  the  young  prince 
caught  a  distant  view  of  Napoleon  the  Great  at  Leip- 
zic. 

The  late  Duchess  of  Cambridge  had  a  clear  remem- 


SULTAN   AND   TSAR  121 

brance  of  seeing  Napoleon  in  1813  mounted  on  his 
white  charger  Marengo.  At  all  events,  it  is  a  matter 
of  history  that  the  Prince  of  Prussia  as  a  lad  of  seven- 
teen entered  Paris  with  the  allies  in  1814.  Naturally 
he  would  have  been  present  at  the  reception  given 
at  the  Tuileries  by  the  restored  King  of  France,  Louis 
XVIII,  As  naturally  he  would  have  gazed  on  the 
Arch  of  the  Carrousel,  then  adorned  with  marble  efifi- 
gies  of  soldiers  of  the  First  Empire  and  surmounted 
by  the  brazen  horses  of  St.  Mark,  plundered  by  the 
armies  of  the  French  Republic  from  Venice  ;  and 
most  naturally  would  he  have  ridden  up  the  Champs 
Elysees  and  inspected  that  Arch  of  Triumph  of  the 
Etoile  which  Napoleon  I.  had  planned  to  commemo- 
rate the  victories  of  his  legions,  but  which  w-as  not 
finally  completed  until  the  reign  of  the  Orleanist  Mon- 
arch, Louis  Philippe.  Fate  is  nothing  if  not  ironical. 
The  Prussian  Prince,  who  in  his  youth  had  witnessed 
the  downfall  of  the  conqueror  and  captive  of  the  earth, 
and  entered  his  capital  with  the  sovereigns  of  Prussia, 
Russia,  and  Austria,  and  our  own  Wellington — who 
was  to  be  the  honoured  guest  of  the  Third  Napoleon 
in  1867,  was  destined  in  1871  to  ride  once  more  under 
the  proud  monument  of  the  Etoile  at  the  head  of  the 
victorious  German  armies,  to  find  the  dynasty  of  the 
Bonapartesin  the  dust  and  to  listen  haughtily  to  terms 
of  peace  sued  for  by  a  Republican  Government. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

THE  CLERKENWELL   EXPLOSION  AND   THE  "  CLAIMANT  " 

I  HAD  been  absent  from  England  for  nearly  two  years 
when  the  Exposition  ended  ;  and  was  glad  enough  to 
get  back  to  London,  and  to  the  comforts  of  home  and 
club  life.  We  did  not,  however,  choose  London  as 
our  abode ;  but  took  a  pretty  house  on  the  Terrace,  at 
Putney,  over  against  the  "  Eight  Bells  "  Tavern.  Both 
the  Terrace  and  the  tavern  have  long  since  been  de- 
molished ;  and  the  last  time  that  I  strolled  through 
Putney  I  found  the  heretofore  quiet  little  village  trans- 
formed into  a  bustling  suburb  of  quite  metropolitan 
brilliancy  in  the  way  of  shops  ;  and  I  sought  in  vain 
for  an  old-fashioned  Tudor  or  Jacobean  house,  with 
many  windows,  which  mansion,  it  is  said,  had  been 
inhabited  during  the  Civil  wars  by  Oliver  Cromwell. 
Ubiquitous  Oliver  !  If  tradition  is  to  be  trusted  he 
must  have  had  as  many  habitations  as  he  had  heads. 

I  have  good  reason  to  remember  the  late  autumn  of 
1867;  since  I  was  sent  down  to  Maidstone  to  witness 
the  first  execution  under  the  provision  of  the  Act  for 
abolishing  public  executions.  It  is  a  disagreeable  topic 
to  touch  upon,  and  I  am  disinclined  to  recur  to  it  here 
at  any  length.  I  may  just  say,  nevertheless,  that  I  was 
accompanied  on  this  dismal  errand  by  two  journalistic 
colleagues  and  old  friends,  Mr.  Edmund  Yates  and 
Mr.  Joseph  Charles  Parkinson.  We  each  wrote  a 
faithful  narrative  of  the  scene  at  Maidstone,  which  was 
a  sufficiently  sickening  one,  and  we  were  all  abused  for 
having  simply  done  our  duty.     Oddly  enough,  I  re- 


CLERKENWELL   EXPLOSION   AND   THE   "CLAIMANT"      123 

ceived  in  the  autumn  of  this  present  year  of  grace, 
1894,  a  letter  from  an  amateur  autograph  collector, 
who  mentioned,  among  other  things,  that  he  was  the 
possessor  of  an  autograph  letter  of  mine,  addressed  to 
the  editor  of  some  provincial  newspaper,  by  which,  he 
said,  he  set  some  store.  I  venture  to  give  a  copy  of 
it,  inasmuch  as  the  document  may  be  considered  as  a 
contribution  towards  this  candid,  and,  I  hope  (errors 
excepted),  modest  x\pology  for  my  Life. 

Marine  Hotel,  Hastings, 
Wednesday,  14th  August,  1872. 
Dear  Sir, — I  beg  to  acknowledge  receipt  of  your  note.  I  am  not  a 
reporter ;  and  were  such  my  vocation  I  could  not  write  anything  of  a 
journalistic  nature  save  for  the  newspaper  to  which  I  am  exclusively 
attached — the  Daily  Telegraph.  I  have  seen  a  great  many  executions 
in  my  time,  and,  some  four  years  since,  wrote  an  account  in  the  Daily 
Telegraph  of  the  first  private  execution  at  Maidstone.  I  thereafter 
made  up  my  mind  never  to  witness  another  hanging  :  first,  because  the 
spectacle  at  Maidstone  made  me  sick  ;  and  next,  because  I  was  very 
foully  abused  in  the  Saturday  Review  and  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  on 
account  of  the  narrative  I  wrote. 

The  abuse  of  which  I  speak  was  manifestly  prompted 
by  mere  newspaper  jealousy  and  spite,  Mr.  Yates, 
Mr.  Parkinson,  and  I  were  dubbed  "  ghouls,"  "  vam- 
pires," "  men  with  mudrakes,"  and  the  like,  merely  be- 
cause we  drew  a  faithful  picture  of  a  novel  and  ghastly 
occurrence.  But  no  one  had  reviled  Charles  Dickens 
when,  as  an  amateur,  not  professionally,  he  attended 
the  execution  of  Courvoisier.  Nobody  quarrelled 
with  Thackeray  when,  equally  unprofessionally,  he 
witnessed  an  execution  at  the  Old  Bailey,  and  in 
Frasers  Magazine  wrote  an  article  called  "  Going  to 
See  a  Man  Hanged."  Finally,  nobody  was  shocked 
when  "  Tom  "  Ingoldsby  (the  pseudonym  of  a  clergy- 
man of  the  Church  of  England,  mind  you)  wrote  "  My 
Lord  Tomnoddy"  in  Bcntlcys  Miscellany. 


124  L^FE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

I  note  in  my  diary  two  events  which  occurred 
towards  the  close  of  1867,  both  of  which  call  for  a  few 
words  of  comment.  On  the  9th  of  November  the  un- 
usual, and,  I  should  say,  almost  unique,  sight  was  pre- 
sented to  the  multitude  gathered  together  to  witness 
the  Lord  Mayor's  Show  of  the  chief  magistrate  pro- 
ceeding from  Guildhall  to  the  Law  Courts  at  West- 
minster in  a  simple  chariot,  chocolate  in  hue.  A  third 
of  London  was  amazed  ;  another  third  was  horrified  ; 
and  the  remainder  laughed  at  the  elimination  of  the 
time-honoured  state -carriage  from  the  procession. 
The  Lord  Mayor  who  ventured  on  this  bold  innova- 
tion was  Mr.  W.  H.  Allen,  a  member  of  a  well-known 
firm  of  publishers  in  Waterloo  Place ;  and  his  action  in 
excluding  the  old-fashioned  gilded  ark  on  wheels  from 
the  pageant  was  not,  I  should  say,  prompted  by  any 
feeling  of  penuriousness,  but  by  the  conviction  that 
state  coaches,  Gog  and  Magog,  men  in  armour,  the 
banner  of  the  late  Countess  of  Kent,  Mr.  Common 
Hunt  and  the  Water  Bailiff's  Young  Man,  were  gro- 
tesque anachronisms  which  might  well  be  improved 
off  the  face  of  the  Lord  Mayor's  Show.  I  was  not,  and 
am  not,  of  Mr.  Alderman  Allen's  way  of  thinking. 
Heaven  preserve  us  from  the  day  when  there  will  be 
no  Lord  Mavor's  Show,  no  visits  of  the  chief  masfis- 
trate  and  his  train  to  the  Law  Courts,  and  no  Guild- 
hall banquet !  All  these  paraphernalia  may  be  practi- 
cally without  use,  and,  to  some  extent,  childish  ;  but 
they  serve  to  remind  us  of  an  historic  past,  dignified, 
picturesque,  and  gaudy  ;  and  I  would  no  more  abolish 
Gog  and  Magog,  and  the  rest  of  the  medieval  proper- 
ties of  the  9th  November  than  I  would  call  for  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Queen's  Beefeaters  and  the  Gentlemen- 
at-Arms,  or  give  the  power  of  licensing — or  refusing 
to  license  —  the  Royal  Italian  Opera  to  the  London 
County  Council. 


CLERKENWELL   EXPLOSION   AND   THE    "CLAIMANT"     12$ 

By  the  way,  it  is  worth  while  marking  the  fact  that 
such  of  my  readers  who  have  not  been  favoured  with 
a  card  of  admission  for  the  Royal  Stables  at  Bucking- 
ham Palace,  and  who  are  not  less,  say,  than  thirty-five 
years  of  age,  have  never  seen  the  state-carriage  of  Her 
Majesty  Queen  Victoria.  The  equipage  in  which  Her 
Majesty  rode  from  Buckingham  Palace  to  Westmin- 
ster Abbey  on  the  joyous  day  of  the  Jubilee  was  a 
"  dress  "  carriage,  with  glass  upper  panels,  but  it  was 
not  the  Royal  state -carriage,  which  dates  from  the 
year  1762,  and  which  was  designed  by  Sir  William 
Chambers,  the  architect  of  Somerset  House,  and 
painted  with  allegorical  scenes  by  Cipriani,  R.A. 
This  gorgeous  coach  cost  i^8,ooo.  Some  of  the  new 
journalists  who  described  the  Jubilee  procession,  has- 
tened to  inform  their  readers  that  the  Queen  occupied 
the  state-carriage,  which  was  drawn  "  by  eight  Hano- 
verian ponies."  Ponies,  forsooth  ! — they  were  horses 
of  the  old  Hanoverian  stud  breed  ;  and  it  should  be 
remembered  that  Napoleon  I.,  when  he  seized  Han- 
over, took  away  a  number  of  the  cream  -  coloured 
steeds  from  the  Royal  mews  there  to  Paris  ;  and  that 
to  his  state-carriage  at  his  coronation  eight  cream-col- 
oured horses  were  harnessed.  The  Parisians  called 
them  /es  chcvanx  cafe  an  lait.  Their  abduction  by  the 
Corsican  Usurper  so  irritated  George  HI.  that,  until 
the  fall  of  Bonaparte,  in  18 14,  the  King  of  England's 
carriage,  when  he  opened  or  prorogued  Parliament, 
was  drawn  by  black  horses. 

It  was  on  the  12th  December,  1867,  that,  just  as  I 
was  about  to  return  to  Putney,  at  the  end  of  my  day's 
work,  I  was  intercepted  at  the  Waterloo  terminus  by 
a  nimble  messenger  from  the  Daily  Telegraph  office, 
who  told  me  that  an  explosion  had  taken  place  at  the 
Clerkenwell  House  of  Detention,  and  that  I  was  to  re- 
pair thither  at  once.     The   swiftest  of  hansoms  con- 


126  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

veyed  me  to  the  prison.  It  was  nightfall  when  I  ar- 
rived at  the  House  of  Detention.  There  was  a  strong 
cordon  of  police  round  the  scene  of  the  explosion  to 
keep  off  the  mob  ;  but  the  inspectors  on  duty  knew 
who  I  was,  and  allowed  me  to  pass.  My  eye  lighted 
on  the  strangest  of  spectacles.  All  the  cells  in  the 
prison  were  lighted  up  ;  the  wall  in  front  was  one 
great  black  mass,  in  the  middle  of  which,  low  down, 
there  was  a  huge  cavity,  through  which  you  could 
descry  the  gas  lamps  in  the  prison  yard.  The  debris 
of  that  yawning  chasm  in  the  wall  had  formed  a  high 
mound  in  Corporation  Lane  ;  and  on  the  top  of  the 
hillock  of  broken  bricks  stood  Captain  Eyre  Massey 
Shaw,  directing,  with  his  usual  coolness  and  decision, 
the  operations  of  the  firemen. 

There  was  a  strong  detachment  of  the  Scots  Guards 
on  the  ground.  The  explosion  was  a  madcap  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  Fenians  to  liberate  a  member  of 
their  faction  who  was  confined,  on  remand,  in  the 
House  of  Detention.  The  only  eye-witness  of  the  out- 
rage was  a  boy,  who  was  standing,  about  four  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  in  front  of  No.  5,  Corporation  Lane, 
when  he  saw  a  large  barrel  close  to  the  wall  of  the 
prison,  and  a  man  leave  the  barrel  and  cross  the  road. 
Shortly  afterwards  he  returned  with  a  long  squib  in 
his  hand,  which  he  thrust  into  the  barrel.  Some  other 
boys  had  gathered  round,  and  one  was  smoking,  and 
he  handed  the  man  a  light,  which  the  recipient  ap- 
plied to  the  squib.  When  he  saw  that  the  squib  was 
beginning  to  burn,  he  ran  away.  A  police  constable 
ran  after  him  ;  and  when  he  arrived  opposite  No.  5, 
"  the  thing  went  off."  There  were  several  people  in 
the  street  at  the  time,  and  children  playing.  The  ex- 
plosion blew  down  several  houses,  and  smashed  most 
of  the  coarse  glass  panes  in  the  windows  of  the  prison  ; 
and  the  result  of  the  outrage  to   the  unoffending  in- 


CLERKENWELL   EXPLOSION   AND   THE   "CLAIMANT"     \2^ 

habitants  of  Corporation  Lane  were  most  shocking. 
Upwards  of  forty  people,  men,  women,  and  children, 
were  more  or  less  severely  injured  ;  and  seven  were 
killed,  one  on  the  spot ;  while  the  remainder  died  from 
their  wounds. 

I  had  passed  through  the  cordon  of  police  easily 
enouofh  ;  but  to  o:et  back  to  Fleet  Street  was  a  matter 
of  considerable  difificulty.  The  crowd  was  enormous  ; 
and  the  police,  naturally,  could  not  tell  friends  from 
foes,  or  Fenians  fj-om  journalists  ;  but  cuffed  and  buf- 
feted all  the  assemblage  impartially.  I  managed,  how- 
ever, to  get  close  to  the  detachment  of  Guards,  who 
were  marching  away  from  the  scene  of  the  explosion, 
and  telling  the  officer  in  command  who  I  was,  he  good- 
naturedly  allowed  me  to  "  tail  on,"  so  to  speak,  to  the 
detachment,  and  at  the  steady  pace  at  which  the  sol- 
diers were  marching,  we  were  soon  clear  of  the  crowds, 
and  I  was  free  to  make  my  way  to  Fleet  Street  and 
write  a  description  of  what  1  had  seen.  The  Fenians 
suspected  of  having  committed,  or  of  being  accom- 
plices in  the  Clerkenwell  outrage  were  not  tried  until 
April,  1868,  but  all  were  acquitted  ;  with  the  exception 
of  one,  Michael  Barrett,  who  was  hanged  in  front  of 
the  Debtors'  Door,  Newgate,  on  May  26th.  This  was 
the  last  public  execution  that  took  place  in  England. 
The  year  1867  came  to  an  end  with  a  very  serious  Fe- 
nian scare  ;  other  explosions  occurred,  there  was  great 
public  excitement,  and  nearly  thirty  thousand  special 
constables  were  sworn  in. 

Early  in  1868  took  place  the  annual  University  Boat- 
race,  and  we  had  a  large  party  of  friends  to  witness 
the  contest  and  lunch  at  Putney.  Among  my  guests, 
if  I  remember  aright,  were  Mr.  John  Lawrence  Toole, 
Mr.  J.  Baldwin  Buckstone,  then  lessee  of  the  Hay- 
market,  and  another  well-known  comedian.  The  party 
enjoyed  themselves  thoroughly  ;  but  on  Toole  making 


128  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

his  appearance  in  the  balcony  to  look  at  the  motley 
groups  crowding  the  Terrace,  he  was  at  once  recog- 
nised, and  loud  calls  were  made  on  him  for  a  speech — 
a  request  with  which,  in  his  usually  urbane  manner,  he 
at  once,  and  facetiously  complied.  Those  were  days 
in  which  the  very  old  British  fashion  of  gentlemen 
drinking  brandy  and  w^ater  cold  after  a  substantial 
lunch  had  not  entirely  vanished  ;  and  the  two  actor- 
managers,  disdaining  to  watch  the  humours  of  the 
giddy  throng  without,  or  to  join  in  the  perhaps  friv- 
olous conversation  of  the  company  within,  betook 
themselves  to  serious  confabulation,  aided  by  libations 
of  cold  brandy  and  water.  It  happened  that  I  had 
brought  with  me  from  Paris  a  small  parcel  of  very  old 
and  rare  cognac.  Indeed,  it  had  come  from  the  cellars 
of  Napoleon  I.  The  bottles  were  labelled  1812  ;  and 
the  wine  w^as  a  present  from  a  dear,  deceased  friend  of 
mine,  James  Lorimer  Graham,  of  New  York.  Two 
bottles  of  this  precious  brandy  remained  ;  and  one  I 
set,  with  proper  pride,  before  the  two  actor-managers. 
From  time  to  time  they  were  joined  by  other  guests, 
who  helped  them  to  dispose  of  the  cognac.  Really 
good  brandy  is  a  very  powerful  magnet.  In  about 
another  hour  a  second  bottle  was  produced  ;  then  the 
two  empty  flasks  were  removed  ;  and  another  bottle 
was  brought,  which,  however,  they  did  not  more  than 
half  empty,  and  then,  quite  sober,  and  without  appar- 
ently having  ''  turned  a  hair,"  they  shook  hands  with 
us  and  departed.  When  all  the  customers  had  taken 
leave  I  asked  my  wife  to  explain  to  me  the  inscrutable 
mystery  of  the  third  bottle  of  rare  old  cognac  labelled 
1812. 

"  You  see,  dear,"  she  replied,  "  it  was  like  this.  The 
first  bottle  came,  surely  enough,  from  Mr.  James  Lor- 
imer Graham's  parcel;  but  when  another  bottle  was 
called  for  I  just  took  off  the  label  from  bottle  number 


CLERKENWELL   EXPLOSION   AND   THE   "CLAIMANT"     129 

two  and  pasted  it  on  a  bottle  of  British  brandy,  of 

which-  Messrs,  B ,  the  well-known  distillers,  sent 

you  a  couple  of  dozen  this  morning;  and  I  acted  in 
precisely  the  same  manner  when  I  sent  them  the  third 
bottle.  So  you  see,  that  you  have  still  one  bottle  of 
the  rare  old  cognac  left."  Now  the  British  brandy  of 
that  epoch  was  what  is  known  in  distilling  circles  as 
"gin-wash,"  flavoured  with  the  best  French  cognac. 
It  is  very  nice  indeed,  but  not  very  potent,  and  that 
fact  may  account  for  the  exemplary  sobriety  of  the 
two  actor-managers  when  they  left  the  Terrace,  Put- 
ney. Buckstone  in  particular  was — as  a  friend  who 
accompanied  them  to  the  station  told  me — as  right  as 
a  trivet.  On  their  way  a  little  boy  asked  him  the  time 
of  day ;  to  which  query  the  comedian,  quoting  Shake- 
speare, replied,  "  Time  to  be  honest  " — a  really  strik- 
ing intellectual  effort,  I  take  it,  after  the  consumption 
of  so  much  brandy  and  water,  even  though  it  were 
British. 

To  describe  my  life  during  1868  would  be  only  to 
chronicle  so  many  days,  weeks,  and  months  of  hard, 
but  pleasant  work ;  so  many  hundreds  of  leaders  writ- 
ten ;  so  many  public  functions  described,  so  many  pict- 
ure exhibitions  criticised  and  books  reviewed.  We 
moved  from  Putney,  first  back  to  Sloane  Street ;  and 
then  to  a  house  in  Thistle  Grove,  now  Dra3'ton  Gar- 
dens, Brompton.  In  Thistle  Grove,  nearly  opposite 
to  our  house,  lived  a  family  by  the  name  of  Bloxam, 
the  head  of  which  was  a  wine  merchant,  who  was  the 
son-in-law  of  Mr.  Thomas  Roberts,  a  then  well-known 
solicitor  in  Spring  Gardens,  with  whom  I  had  been  for 
a  long  time  on  terms  of  intimate  friendship.  Some 
time  in  1868  Mr.  Bloxam,  whom  we  frequently  visited, 
and  who,  with  his  wife  and  sister,  as  frequently  visited 
us,  began  to  tell  me  of  a  lawsuit  which  might  be  soon 
expected  to  come  on,  and  which  would  make,  he 
II. — 9 


1^0       LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


thought,  a  considerable  stir  in  the  public  mind.  A 
claimant  to  the  ancient  Barony  of  Tichborne,  so  he 
informed  me,  had  arrived  from  Australia,  where,  at  a 
place  called  Wagga-Wagga,  and  under  the  name  of 
Thomas  Castro,  he  had  carried  on  the  business  of  a 
butcher. 

The  Claimant's  case  was  that  he  and  eight  of  the 
crew  were  saved  from  the  wreck  of  a  ship  called  the 
Bella ;  that  he  went  to  Australia,  and  lived  there  for 
fourteen  years  under  the  name  of  Castro ;  and  that  he 
was  married  in  Januar}^  1868,  as  Castro,  but  in  July 
of  the  same  year  as  Tichborne.  In  1867  his  claim  was 
recognised  by  the  Dowager  Lady  Tichborne,  who  had 
advertised  for  her  long-lost  son,  who  had  formerly 
been  an  offtcer  in  a  cavalry  regiment.  No  other  mem- 
bers of  the  family  accepted  him  ;  but  Sir  Clifford  Con- 
stable and  some  of  his  brother  officers  did.  A  select 
circle  of  believers  in  the  Claimant  was  gradually 
formed  ;  and  I  found,  one  evening,  at  Mr.  Bloxam's, 
Lord  Rivers,  whom  I  had  known  years  before  as  the 
Honourable  Horace  Pitt.  His  sister,  the  Honourable 
Harriet  Pitt,  had  been  one  of  the  Queen's  Maids  of 
Honour.  Another  zealous  friend  of  the  Claimant  was 
Mr.  Guildford  Onslow,  M.P.,  who  is  said  to  have 
backed  him  to  the  extent  of  nearly  ;^  15,000;  and 
among  his  other  influential  friends  the  name  of 
Mr.  Quartermaine  East  and  Mr.  Biddulph  recur  to 
me.  Most  of  these  gentlemen  were  frequentl}^  to  be 
found  at  Bloxam's.  What  the  last-named  worthy 
party  had  to  do  with  the  business  I  am  unable  to  say 
with  certainty.  Possibly  he  may  have  had  some  share 
in  organising  those  celebrated  Tichborne  bonds,  the 
holders  of  which  were  to  be  reimbursed  when  the 
Claimant  recovered  his  title  and  estates. 

This  bulky  litigant  I  did  not  see  in  the  flesh  until 
1869.     In  1867  he  was  mainly  in  Paris  in  attendance  on 


CLERKENWELL   EXPLOSION   AND   THE   "CLAIMANT"     13I 

the  lady  who  believed  that  he  was  her  son.  With 
regard  to  Mr.  Bloxam,  I  am  fully  persuaded  in  my 
mind  that  he  had  an  entire  and  implicit  belief  that  the 
then  corpulent  Claimant  was  not  Arthur  Orton,  for- 
merl}^  of  Whitechapel,  butcher,  and  that  he  was  Roger 
Charles  Tichborne,  son  and  heir  of  Sir  James  Tich- 
borne,  Baronet,  who — Roger — was  born  in  1829,  par- 
tially educated  in  France  and  at  Stonyhurst  College ; 
who  sailed  for  Valparaiso,  South  America,  in  1853, 
and  who  left  Rio  de  Janeiro  in  the  Bella,  which  foun- 
dered at  sea  in  1854.  I  knew  Mr.  Bloxam  very  well, 
and  I  had  not  at  any  time  any  reason  to  doubt  his 
candour  and  integrit}'.  That  which  I  subsequently 
saw  of  the  Claimant  I  shall  relate  in  its  proper  place. 


CHAPTER   XLIII 

BEHIND   THE   SCENES   AGAIN 

The  year  1868  will  always  be  memorable  as  the  one  in 
which  I  was  introduced  to  Henry  Labouchere,  M.P. 
There  was  a  building  in  Long  Acre  used  as  a  place  for 
lectures  and  public  meetings,  and  called  St.  Martin's 
Hall.  Here,  in  1858,  Charles  Dickens  made  his  first 
appearance  as  a  public  lecturer,  in  aid  of  the  funds  for 
the  Hospital  for  Sick  Children  ;  and  here  I  once  had 
the  fortune,  or  misfortune,  to  listen  to  an  American 
called,  I  think,  Mason  Jones,  who  was  gifted  with  an 
extraordinary  mnemonic  faculty,  and  who  positively 
recited  ''  Paradise  Lost,"  without  book,  from  beginning 
to  end.  I  did  not,  I  confess,  hear  him  right  through ; 
but  when  he  had  rolled  out  about  three  hundred  verses 
following  the  Invocation  and  Introduction  I  went  out 
for  a  little  walk.  When  I  returned  the  orator  was 
attacking  Satan's  Address  to  the  Sun.  I  again  strolled 
out  to  smoke  a  cigar  and  call  upon  a  friend.  By  this 
time  Mr.  Mason  Jones  had  got  as  far  as  Eve's  Recol- 
lections ;  but  when  he  had  reached  the  Evening  in 
Paradise  I  stepped  over  the  way  to  partake  of  some 
light  refreshment  at  Mr.  Nokes's  hotel,  opposite  the 
Royal  Italian  Opera,  Bow  Street,  Covent  Garden. 
But,  hurrah !  I  was  in  at  the  death,  and  with  unabated 
vigour  did  Mr.  Mason  Jones  spout  his  peroration: — 

"  The  world  was  all  before  them  where  to  choose 
Their  place  of  rest ;  and  Providence  their  guide, 
They,  hand  in  hand,  with  wandering  steps  and  slow, 
Through  Eden  took  their  solitary  way." 


BEHIND   THE   SCENES   AGAIN  1 33 

The  world  knows  nothing  of  its  greatest  men  ;  and 
I  am  not  aware  of  what  became  of  the  phenomenally 
verbose  Mr.  Mason  Jones  ;  but  if  he  be  still  in  the  flesh, 
were  I  to  meet  him  again,  and  did  he  too  propose  to 
recite,  say  Carey's  "  Dante,"  or  Hoole's  "  Tasso,"  in 
cxtenso,  or  Spenser's  "  Faerie  Oueene,"  I  fear  that  I 
should  pray  to  be  delivered  from  Mr.  Mason  Jones, 
even  as  Oliver  Cromwell  prayed  to  be  delivered  from 
Sir  Henry  Vane. 

There  was  little  raison  d'etre  for  St.  Martin's  Hall, 
which  might  have  been  more  appropriately  called  St. 
Clement's,  or  St.  Paul's,  or  St.  Giles's  Hall ;  and  after 
an  unsuccessful  series  of  Promenade  Concerts,  given 
by  an  enterprising  individual  called  Strange,  some 
time  lessee  of  the  Alhambra,  in  Leicester  Square,  the 
Hall  was  reconstructed  as  a  theatre ;  and  late  in  Octo- 
ber, 1867,  was  opened  under  the  management  of  the 
late  Mr.  Alfred  Wigan.  In  1868-69  the  manageress  of 
the  Queen's  was  a  very  pleasing  actress  and  sweet 
singer,  long  since  known  and  admired  by  a  large  circle 
of  friends  as  Mrs.  Henry  Labouchere.  Mr.  Labou- 
chere  was  actively  concerned  in  the  management. 
He  wanted  a  new  piece— he  was  always  wanting  new 
pieces — and  my  friend,  Andrew  Halliday,  the  author, 
in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Frederick  Laurence,  of  Ken- 
ihvortJi,  one  of  the  best  burlesques  ever  produced  in 
modern  times,  and  who  also  wrote  for  Drury  Lane, 
under  the  Chatterton  management,  the  melodramas  of 
The  Great  City  and  King  of  Scots,  told  me  one  evening 
that  Mr.  Labouchere  would  be  very  glad  to  enter 
into  negotiations  with  me  for  a  drama  full  of  exciting 
situations. 

It  is  a  whimsical  fact  that  repeatedly,  during  my 
career,  I  have  been  importuned  by  theatrical  managers 
to  write  pieces  for  them  ;  but  I  have  never  been  able  to 
convince  them  that,  although  I  know  a  good  deal  about 


134  LIFE  OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

the  stage  and  its  ways,  I  have  not  within  me  the  stuff 
for  making  a  successful  playwright ;  being,  as  I  have 
said  more  than  once,  entirely  devoid  of  the  faculty  of 
imagination,  and  incapable  of  constructing  plots.  At 
all  events,  the  know^ledge  of  my  deficiencies  in  this  re- 
spect has  saved  me  from  the  humiliation  of  having  a 
play  refused.  The  few  which  I  have  written  were  pro- 
posed not  by  me,  but  by  the  managers  themselves  ;  and 
they  were  all,  in  their  way,  successful.  It  is  true  that 
even  now  I  see  my  way  to  the  composition  of  an  his- 
torical tragedy  ;  but  not  a  line  of  it  has  been  committed 
to  paper.  My  good  friend.  Sir  Augustus  Harris,  was 
good  enough  to  approve  the  idea ;  but  as  it  would  cost 
about  ^4,000  sterling  to  bring  out  the  piece  with  ade- 
quate spectacular  effect,  Sir  Augustus  scarcely  sees  his 
way  to  producing  my  tragedy  at  the  Theatre  Royal, 
Drury  Lane. 

Nevertheless,  I  thought  that  there  would  be  no  harm 
in  seeing  what  Mr.  Labouchere  was  like.  An  appoint- 
ment with  him  was  made  to  meet  Halliday  and  myself 
at  ten  o'clock  one  evening,  in  his  private  room  at  the 
theatre.  He  was  then  one  of  the  Members  for  the 
County  of  Middlesex.  He  struck  me  as  being,  in  all 
respects,  a  remarkable  man,  full  of  varied  knowledge ; 
full,  withal,  of  humorous  anecdotes,  and  with  a  mother- 
wit  very  pleasant  to  listen  to.  His  conversation  was, 
to  me,  additionally  interesting ;  since,  when  I  was  in 
Mexico,  I  had  gone  over  most  of  the  ground  which  he 
had  travelled  ;  and  that  I  was  familiar  with  the  United 
States  and  with  Russia,  in  both  of  which  countries  he 
had  long  resided,  when  he  was  in  the  Diplomatic  Ser- 
vice. 

I  know  not  what  it  was  which  prevented  me  from 
writing  a  piece  ;  still  in  1868-69  I  was  constantly  at  the 
Queen's,  generally  in  the  company  of  Watts  Phillips, 
artist,  satirical  essayist,  and  dramatist.     A  gifted  and 


BEHIND   THE   SCENES   AGAIN  135 

most  versatile  man  was  poor  Watts,  much  admired 
and  appreciated  by  many  friends  ;  but,  as  I  have  al- 
ways thought,  cruelly  and  ungratefully  ignored  and 
neglected  by  the  great  body  of  the  public.  He  was  a 
pupil  of  George  Cruikshank,  and  drew  vigorously  ;  but 
the  outcome  of  his  artistic  capacity  did  not  extend  be- 
yond his  making  a  number  of  facetious  drawings  for 
Diogenes — in  which  he  also  wrote  "  Thoughts  in  Tatters, 
by  the  Ragged  Philosopher  " — and  for  other  comic  pub- 
lications, and  perhaps  the  flower  of  his  graphic  talent 
is  to  be  found  in  pen-and-ink  drawings,  with  which  he 
adorned,  almost  to  exuberance,  his  letters  to  his  friends. 
His  dramas  were  singularly  powerful  and  compactly 
constructed ;  and  singularly  enough,  although  he  re- 
sided for  a  long  time  in  Paris,  he  did  not,  as  far  as  I  am 
aware,  borrow  any  of  his  plots  or  characters  from  the 
French.  Had  he  lived  in  these  golden  days  for  play- 
wrights, had  he  been  the  contemporary  of  the  P^titts, 
the  Pineros,  the  Simses,  and  the  Thomas  Arthur 
Joneses,  Watts  Phillips  could  have  made  thousands  of 
pounds  from  such  dramas  as  the  Dead  Heart,  Camilla  s 
Husband,  The  Huguenot  Captain,  Paper  Wings,  and  On 
the  Jiiry.  As  it  was,  his  labours  brought  him  little  be- 
yond bare  bread  and  cheese.  He  was  one  of  the  last 
of  the  old  race  of  dramatists,  who  were  accustomed  to 
sell  their  plays  to  a  manager  "  out  and  out." 

The  end  of  it  was  that  poor  Watts  went,  financially, 
all  to  pieces.  He  had  never  enjoyed  good  health,  and 
he  died,  quite  worn  out,  early  in  the  'seventies.  He 
was  an  eccentric,  rather  difficult  to  get  on  with — the 
same  things  have  been  said,  I  apprehend,  more  than 
once,  about  myself — but  I  loved  the  man  dearly,  and 
mourned  his  loss  as  that  of  one  of  the  friends  and  col- 
leagues of  my  youth,  at  a  period  when  my  own  gioventii 
was  most  tempestuous  ;  but  when  Watts  was  enjoying 
the  only  prosperous  epoch  in  his  life,  and  was  living,  a 


136  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


happily-married  man,  with  young  children  about  him, 
at  a  pretty  villa  near  Norwood.  That  must  have  been 
about  1855.  1  am  glad  to  be  able  to  say  that  among 
the  kindest,  the  most  actively  generous  of  his  friends 
in  his  last  years,  was  Henry  Labouchere  ;  and  that  after 
his  death  that  gentleman,  in  conjunction  with  the  late 
My.  Chatterton,  then  lessee  of  Drury  Lane,  did  their 
best  to  help  the  loved  ones  whom  he  left  behind  him. 

Edward  Askew  Sothern,  the  unique  impersonator  of 
Lord  Dundreary  in  Tom  Taylor's  not  very  powerful 
comedy  of  Our  American  Cousin,  I  had  known  as  early 
as  1863-64.     He  had  played  the  character  more  than  a 
thousand   times  before   coming   to    England  ;    and  he 
played  it  four  hundred  and   ninety-six  times  at   the 
Haymarket  Theatre  ;    but  the   part  of  the  American 
Cousin    himself,    Asa   Trenchard,  fell    to    Buckstone ; 
and  that  of  the  senile  old  lawyer's  clerk,  who  had  been 
a  schoolmaster,  was   enacted  by   Chippendale,  a  rare 
representative  of  stage  veterans  of  the  Farren  school, 
and  whose  wife,  a  competent  actress,  I  afterwards  met 
in  Australia.     I  wrote  an  article  about  Sothern's  Lord 
Dundreary  in  a  series  of  papers  called  "  Breakfast  in 
Bed."     The  paper  was  full  of  impertinences,  which  I 
almost  wondered  that  Sothern    did   not   resent ;    but 
possibly  he  saw  that  through  all  my  persiflage  there 
was  evident  the  highest  admiration  for  him  as  a  dra- 
matic artist ;  and  we  soon  became  very  good  friends. 
He  was  something  else  besides  an  admirable  comedian, 
a  cultivated  gentleman,  and  a  good  fellow.     He  was  a 
wag  and   an  inveterate  practical  joker  ;    most  of  his 
achievements  in  the  last-named  direction  have  passed 
into  the  "  chestnut  "  stage,  and  will  not  bear  repetition  ; 
and  those  to  which  publicity  has  not  been  given  will 
be  imparted  to  the  public  in  those  reminiscences  which 
I  hope  that  his  friend  and  occasional  collaborator,  Mr. 
John  Lawrence  Toole,  is  now  engaged  in  writing. 


BEHIND   THE   SCENES   AGAIN  137 


In  the  early  autumn  of  1869  I  took,  as  usual,  my 
four  weeks'  holiday  at  Homburg ;  and  experienced  the 
usual  ups  and  downs,  culminating  with  having  to  get 
a  cheque  on  London  cashed  in  order  to  be  able  to  re- 
turn home.  I  found  at  the  Hotel  de  Russie  at  Frank- 
fort the  late  Mr.  Lionel  Lawson,  one  of  the  principal 
proprietors  of  the  Daily  Telegraph,  and  who  had  some 
interest  in  the  then  juvenile  Gaiety  Theatre,  Strand. 
The  Gaiety  is  built  partially  on  the  site  of  Exeter 
'Change,  a  small  and  gloomy  arcade,  constructed  by 
the  late  Marquis  of  Exeter,  the  owner  of  the  freehold, 
with  the  idea  of  reviving  the  glories  of  the  old  Exeter 
'Change.  It  was  full  of  commodious  shops  ;  but  the 
public  declined  to  patronise  it,  and  the  walls  of  Exeter 
'Change  were,  like  those  of  Balclutha,  generally  deso- 
late. I  mind  the  place  well,  since  Mr.  Pond,  the  ad- 
vertising agent,  and  myself  had  a  house  and  office 
there,  where  we  published  a  comic  journal,  called 
Punchinello.  Exeter  'Change  having  come,  as  a  thor- 
oughfare for  pedestrians,  wholly  to  grief,  its  site  was 
utilised  for  a  large  building,  called  The  Strand  Music 
Hall,  which  speedily,  notwithstanding  its  most  com- 
manding situation,  was,  as  a  commercial  speculation, 
wholly  disastrous.  It  was  demolished,  and  in  its 
stead  arose  the  present  elegant  and  popular  Gaiety 
Theatre. 

With  Mr.  Lionel  Lawson  there  came  Mr.  John  Hol- 
lingshead,  who  was  the  lessee  and  manager  at  the 
Gaiety  ;  and  one  afternoon  "  Honest  John,"  who  had 
been  an  ally  of  mine  for  many  years,  proposed  that  I 
should  write  a  burlesque  to  be  produced  at  the  ensu- 
ing Christmas.  He  had  got,  he  said,  a  capital  idea  for 
such  a  piece.  "  What  do  you  think,"  he  asked,  "  of 
Wat  Tyler  ?  Taxes,  you  know,  and  all  that  kind  of 
thing.  People  always  like  to  listen  to  digs  given  at  the 
taxes."     At  once  I  hailed  the  proposal  ;  and  simultanc- 


138  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 

ously  I  settled  in  my  mind — from  the  slang  analogue 
for  a  hat,  a  "  tile  "—that  Wat  Tyler  should  be  by 
trade  a  hatter,  and  that  he  should  wear  an  inordi- 
nately tall  Gibus.  I  set  to  work  on  the  piece  immedi- 
ately I  got  home  ;  but  I  hasten  to  record  that  the  only 
merits  which  Wat  Tyler  possessed,  and  which  ensured 
it  a  run  of  some  eighty  nights,  belonged  to  Mr.  John 
HoUingshead,  the  suggester  of  the  title ;  to  Miss 
Nellie  Farren,  to  Miss  Constance  Loseby ;  to  Mr. 
Toole,  and  to  the  scene-painters,  costumiers,  and  bal- 
let-master. Wat  Tyler  was  hastily,  inconsiderately, 
and  in  many  instances  stupidly  written.  I  was  in  bad 
health  at  the  time,  and  overwhelmed  with  work.  The 
doggerel  dialogue  had  to  be  written  at  odd  times 
whenever  I  had  an  hour  to  spare ;  but  I  was  obliged 
to  devote  two  or  three  hours  every  day  to  the  rehear- 
sals, and  my  enforced  absences  from  Fleet  Street 
drove  my  friends  there  nearly  frantic. 

Wat  Tyler  was  duly  produced  at  the  Gaiety.  I 
believe  one  gentleman  in  the  stalls  regaled  himself 
with  a  hiss ;  and  very  probably,  like  Charles  Lamb, 

who   hissed    his   own   farce   of    Mr.   H ,   I   might 

have  actively  sympathised  with  the  gentleman  in  the 
stalls  had  I  been  present  at  the  first  performance  of 
my  burlesque.  But  I  happened  to  be  away  busy  in 
writing ;  and  only  reached  the  theatre  in  time  to  be 
told  that  the  piece,  with  all  its  manifest  imperfections, 
had  found  favour  in  the  eyes  of  a  crowded  audience ; 
and  that  I  must  needs  respond  to  a  cry  for  the  author, 
and  appear  before  the  curtain.  So  I  presented  myself 
in  the  not  very  suitable  evening  apparel  of  an  overcoat 
and  check  trousers  ;  and  I  am  told  that  instead  of  back- 
ing out  gracefully  on  the  front  side,  I  turned  my  back 
upon  the  audience.  I  had,  however,  taken  the  precau- 
tion of  leading  on  Miss  Nellie  Farren  at  the  same 
time,  and  of  pointing  to  her  as  the  lady  who  had  prin- 


BEHIND   THE   SCENES   AGAIN  139 

cipally  contributed  to  the  success  of  the  evening.  She 
played  the  part  of  Sir  Reginald  Plantagenet ;  was,  of 
course,  enchanting  in  doublet  and  hose ;  was  arch, 
piqiiante,  and  vivacious,  and  sang  to  admiration  a  par- 
ody of  "  Com  e  gcntil,''  from  Don  Pasqiiale.  A  very 
clever  singer — Miss  Constance  Loseby  —  was  Mrs. 
Tyler ;  and  Wat  Tyler,  who  was  shockingly  hen- 
pecked, was  played  with  his  accustomed  drollery  by 
Mr.  J.  L.  Toole.  I  think,  too,  that  pretty  lady  named 
Rose  Coghlan  was  in  the  cast.  I  am  gratified  to  say 
that  I  never  witnessed  a  performance  of  Wat  Tyler. 
John  Hollingshead  paid  me  handsomely  for  the  piece, 
of  which  he  was  really  the  inventor  ;  and  I  received 
in  addition,  during  several  weeks,  handsome  royalties 
on  the  sale  of  the  book  of  the  words.  Such  was  my 
last  experiment  in  dramatic  authorship. 


CHAPTER    XLIV 

THE   TRIAL   OF   PIERRE   BONAPARTE 

Nothing  of  moment  occurred  in  my  career  until 
March,  1870,  when  I  was  despatched  in  hot  haste  to 
Tours  in  France  to  describe  the  trial  before  the  High 
Court  of  Justice  specially  empanelled  for  the  occasion 
of  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte,  the  third  son  of  Lucien, 
the  nephew  of  the  First  Napoleon,  and  the  cousin  of 
the  Third  one,  for  the  murder  of  a  Paris  journalist,  a 
young  man,  whose  nom  de  guerre  was  Victor  Noir. 
(His  real  name  was  Yvan  Salmon.)  The  career  of 
Pierre  Bonaparte  had  been  a  stormy,  and  not  a  very 
reputable  one.  In  early  manhood  he  had  joined  the 
Carbonari  in  Italy  ;  he  was  warned  to  quit  the  Papal 
States,  and  on  his  refusing  to  do  so  was  arrested  by  a 
party  of  Papal  gendarmes,  or  sbirri.  Armed  only 
with  a  coiLteati  de  chasse,  Pierre  Bonaparte  contrived 
to  slay  the  Captain  of  Police,  and  to  wound  two  of  his 
subordinates ;  but  receiving  in  return  a  ball  in  the 
chest  and  a  thrust  from  a  bayonet  he  was  overpow- 
ered and  conducted  to  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo,  where 
he  remained  for  some  months  in  captivity.  On  his 
release  he  went  to  England,  and  thence  wandered  to 
Corfu.  Crossing  to  Albania  he  had  a  fight  with  some 
hostile  shepherds,  or  palikares,  or  brigands — the  terms 
are  nearly  convertible  ones — and  killed,  it  is  said, 
two  of  his  adversaries,  and  seriously  wounded  a  third. 
He  managed  to  get  back  to  Corfu  ;  and  the  Lord 
High  Commissioner,  thinking  him  a  not  highly  eligi- 
ble guest,  politely  requested  him  to  leave  the  Ionian 


THE   TRIAL   OF   PIERRE   BONAPARTE  I4I 

Islands.  He  subsequently  resided  a  short  time  in 
the  United  States  ;  where,  at  New  York,  shortly  after 
Louis  Napoleon's  abortive  coup  de  main  at  Strasburg, 
he  met  his  princely  cousin,  who  had  been  deported 
beyond  the  Atlantic  by  the  Government  of  Louis 
Philippe. 

When  the  Citizen-King  collapsed,  Pierre  Bonaparte 
hastened  to  Paris,  where  the  Republican  Government 
gave  him  a  command  in  the  Foreign  Legion.  He  was 
elected  as  Deputy  for  Corsica,  a  member  of  the  Con- 
stituent Assembly  ;  and  although  he  voted  with  the 
extreme  Left,  he  alwa3-s  loyally  supported  his  cousin 
Louis  Napoleon.  Then  he  left  France,  which  was,  in 
truth,  rather  glad  to  get  rid  of  him,  and  took  his  de- 
parture for  Algeria,  where  he  displayed  considerable 
courage  in  divers  minor  engagements  with  the  Arabs. 
When  the  Second  Empire  became  an  accomplished 
fact,  Napoleon  \\\.  gave  his  turbulent  kinsman  the 
rank  of  Prince  and  of  Highness,  but  he  was  not  to  be 
considered  as  a  member  of  the  Imperial  family. 

The  Emperor  made  him  a  handsome  allowance.  He 
professed  to  have  given  up  politics,  and  he  lived,  in- 
deed, in  great  privacy  in  a  suburb  of  Paris  ;  but  he 
seemed  to  have  entirely  divorced  himself  from  his  Re- 
publican proclivities ;  and  his  closest  ally  in  a  political 
sense  was  the  ultra-Bonapartist,  M.  Paul  de  Cassagnac  ; 
while  he  held  in  the  bitterest  hatred  Henri  Rochefort, 
and  all  the  contributors  to  the  ultra-Republican  j\Iar- 
seillaise. 

As  for  the  hapless  Victor  Noir,  he  had  been  a  jour- 
neyman watchmaker,  then  a  fforist,  and  ultimately 
drifted  into  journalism  :  becoming  an  assiduous  con- 
tributor to  the  columns  of  what  the  Parisians  call  la 
petite  presse.  He  had  considerable  descriptive  talent, 
and  a  curiously  keen  faculty  for  finding  out  things 
connected   witli  the  upper  classes;  and   from  this  ac- 


142        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

quisition  he  would  have  proved  a  valuable  member  of 
the  staff  of  an  English  "  society  "  journal.  His  mode 
of  procedure  was,  as  he  candidly  admitted,  to  begin 
by  making  friends  avcc  Ics  larbins,  or  lacqueys  of  the 
aristocracy.  My  Toulon  experience  taught  me  that 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  information  to  be  gained  by 
consorting  with  flunkeys.  He  had  but  recently  joined 
the  Marseillaise,  and  he  was  engaged  to  be  married  two 
months  later,  when  he  was  on  the  loth  January,  1870, 
sent  by  M.  Pascal  Grousset  to  the  residence  of  Prince 
Pierre  Bonaparte  to  demand  reparation  for  an  insult 
addressed  by  the  Prince  to  the  rcdacteiirs  of  a  journal 
called  the  Revanche.  To  Auteuil  he  consequently  re- 
paired, being  accompanied  by  another  journalist,  jNI. 
Ulric  de  Fonvielle.  About  four  in  the  afternoon  they 
arrived  at  Auteuil ;  sent  in  their  cards  and  were  con- 
ducted to  the  drawing-room.  Five  minutes  afterwards 
the  Prince,  in  rather  a  neglige  costume,  entered  the 
room. 

They  delivered  M.  Pascal  Grousset's  message,  and 
handed  the  Prince  a  letter  from  that  gentleman.  Pierre 
Bonaparte  seemed  surprised  that  the  letter  was  not  a 
challenge  from  Rochefort,  for  whom  he  professed  the 
utmost  disdain.  He  read  the  letter  and  threw  it  on  a 
chair,  and  then  he  began  to  abuse  the  two  journalists. 

According  to  the  evidence  of  M.  Ulric  de  Fonvielle 
the  Prince  struck  Victor  Noir  in  the  face,  and  then 
drawing  back  a  pace  or  two  drew  a  revolver  and  fired 
at  the  young  journalist,  who,  pressing  his  hands  to  his 
breast,  rushed  from  the  room  and  downstairs  and  fell 
dead  in  the  street.  The  Prince  fired  another  chamber 
of  his  revolver  at  M.  de  Fonvielle,  who  vainly  endeav- 
oured to  extricate  his  own  pistol  from  its  case ;  again 
the  Prince  fired,  and  the  scared  M.  de  Fonvielle  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  from  the  house,  raising  cries  of 
"  Murder." 


THE   TRIAL   OF   PIERRE   BONAPARTE  1 43 

This,  then  was  the  weighty  affair  of  which  I  was 
commissioned  to  follow  the  judicial  unravelling  before 
the  Haute  Cour  de  Justice.  At  Tours  I  found  two 
colleagues  representing  important  English  newspapers 
— my  old  friend  Antonio  Gallenga  of  the  Times,  and 
Mr.  Frederick  Boyle  of  the  Standard.  There  was, 
besides,  a  host  of  French  journalists ;  and  we  Britons 
availed  ourselves  of  the  advice  given  to  us  by  a 
friendly  Commissary  of  Police,  to  visit  the  court  on 
the  Sunday  before  the  trial,  and  nail  our  professional 
cards  in  the  particular  parts  of  the  tribune  reserved 
for  the  press  which  we  desired  to  occupy.  The  coun- 
sel was  sagacious ;  for  the  rush  for  seats  the  next 
morning  was  tremendous  ;  but  our  French  confreres, 
although  somewhat  grudgingly  admitting  that  posses- 
sion was  nine-tenths  of  the  law,  did  not  molest  us  dur- 
ing the  many  days  the  trial  lasted. 

I  can  scarcely  say,  however,  that  they  were  oppres- 
singly  polite  to  us.  The  scene  in  the  High  Court  of 
Justice  the  next  morning  was  an  imposing  one  ;  the 
Judges  in  scarlet  and  ermine  were  ranged  at  a  long 
table  of  quadrant  form  on  a  high  platform  ;  and  at 
one  extremity  of  the  table  was  the  grcffier,  and  at  the 
other  the  Public  Prosecutor,  both  in  scarlet  robes. 
To  the  right  of  the  last-named  functionary  was  the 
dock,  a  railed-off  space  furnished  with  a  comfortable 
easy  chair  ;  and  to  this  area  was  conducted  shortly 
after  the  court  had  been  formally  opened,  the  distin- 
guished prisoner. 

The  first  time  that  Napoleon  the  Great  ever  saw 
Godoy,  the  Prince  of  the  Peace,  he  described  him  in  a 
letter  to  his  brother  Joseph  as  vn  taurean.  Prince 
Pierre  Bonaparte  would  have  passed  very  well  as  a 
toreador.  He  would,  I  should  say,  physically,  have 
been  altogether  at  home  in  a  bull-ring  at  Seville  ;  and 
in  my  mind's  eye   I   pictured  him  in  full  matador  cos- 


144  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

tume,  standing-,  Toledo  blade  in  one  hand,  and  with 
the  other  slowly  waving-  the  little  red  flag  as  a  lure 
for  the  bull  to  dash  himself  at  the  point  of  his  rapier. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  prisoner  was  dressed  in  a 
frock  coat  of  the  colour  known  as  bleu  barbcait,  with 
gloves  of  yellow  or  bciirre  frais  kid.  He  was  per- 
fectly self-possessed  ;  and  displayed  much  argumenta- 
tive skill  while  undergoing  the  interrogatory  of  the 
President  of  the  High  Court,  M.  Glandaz.  And  of 
this  typical  Corsican's  personal  courage  there  cannot 
be  the  slightest  doubt.  He  had  a  strident  and  rather 
harsh  voice,  but  he  kept  his  temper  within  bounds  ; 
save  when  he  made  mention  of  what  he  called  "  Vin- 
fdine  Marseillaise^'  and  its  editor-in-chief.  Then  his 
voice  rose  almost  to  a  yell ;  his  face  was  suffused  with 
a  deep  purple,  and  his  hands  convulsively  clutched  at 
the  portfolio  of  crimson  morocco  leather  in  which  the 
papers  necessary  for  his  defence  were  bestowed. 

It  is  but  fair  to  Pierre  Bonaparte  to  admit  that  the 
version  which  he  gave  of  the  tragedy  at  Auteuil  dif- 
fered materially  from  that  given  by  M.  Ulric  de  Fon- 
vielle.  According  to  the  Prince,  he  had  written  to  M. 
Rochefort,  challenging  him  to  mortal  combat.  The 
next  afternoon,  after  receiving  a  doctor,  who  was 
treating  him  for  a  slight  attack  of  influenza,  he  was  in- 
formed by  a  domestic  that  two  gentlemen  wished  to 
see  him.  Under  the  impression  that  his  visitors  were 
the  seconds  of  the  editor  of  the  Marseillaise,  he  di- 
rected that  they  should  be  shown  in  without  reading 
the  names  on  their  cards.  When  he  found  himself  in 
presence  of  the  two  journalists,  they  assumed,  accord- 
ing to  the  Prince's  showing,  a  provoking  attitude  ;  and 
after  he  had  read  the  letter  and  had  expressed  his  as- 
tonishment that  it  was  not  one  from  Rochefort,  the 
tallest  of  the  two  journalists  struck  him  a  smart  blow 
with  his  list  on  the  left  cheek  ;  and  at  the  same  time 


THE   TRIAL   OF   PIERRE   BONAPARTE  145 

the  Prince  declared  that  he  saw  the  shorter  of  his  two 
visitors,  M.  de  Fonvielle  draw  a  pistol  from  his  pocket 
and  endeavour  to  cock  it ;  whereupon  drawing-  a  re- 
volver which  he  carried  habitually  in  his  own  pocket, 
he  tired  on  the  tall  young  man,  Victor  Noir,  who  im- 
mediately rushed  from  the  apartment ;  while  the  short 
M.  de  Fonvielle  secreted  himself  behind  an  arm-chair, 
whence  he  aimed  his  pistol  at  the  Prince,  who  returned 
the  compliment  by  another  shot,  which,  however,  did 
not  reach  its  mark.  One  of  the  counsel  for  t\iQ  par  tie 
civile,  who,  without  regard  for  Prince  Pierre's  indict- 
ment for  murder,  was  seeking  damages  against  him  on 
behalf  of  the  family  of  Victor  Noir,  was  Maitre  Charles 
Thomas  Floquet,  then  an  advocate  about  forty  years 
of  age,  who  had  attained  some  notoriety  by  shouting, 
"  Vive  la  Polognc,  Monsieur!''  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Tsar  Alexander  II.  visiting  the  Paris  Palais  de  Justice. 
He  Avas  practically  the  real  prosecutor  ;  the  law  officers 
of  the  Crown  showing,  if  not  an  actual  prepossession  in 
favour  of  the  prisoner,  considerable  apathy  in  pressing 
the  case  against  him. 

The  trial  lasted  several  days,  and  was  enlivened  by 
more  than  one  humorous  incident.  Laughter  is  not 
generally  a  distinctive  feature  of  a  trial  for  murder; 
yet  the  High  Court  at  Tours,  during  the  examination 
for  the  prosecution  of  M.  Ulric  de  Fonvielle  was  more 
than  once  convulsed  with  merriment.  Neither  the 
counsel  for  the  prosecution,  nor  the  advocate  for  the  de- 
fence, nor  the  jury,  nor  M.  Ulric  de  Fonvielle  himself 
were  able  to  obtain  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  wh}' 
the  last-named  gentleman  had  failed  to  get  his  revolver 
out  of  its  leathern  case  and  adjust  the  trigger  so  as  to 
tire  on  Pierre  Bonaparte.  The  journalist  pleaded  that 
he  had  done  his  best,  but  fate  seemed  to  have  been 
against  him.  The  unlucky  revolver  and  case  were 
handed  up  to  the  bench  ;  and  the  President  having 
II. — 10 


146  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


previously  taken  care  to  ascertain  that  the  weapon 
was  unloaded,  clicked  the  lock  once  or  twice,  observ- 
ing in  a  mildly  reproachful  tone  to  the  journalist,  "  Et 
ccpcndant.  Monsieur  de  Fonvidle,  vous  jiavez  paspu  armer 
votrc  pistolety  Simultaneously  I  heard  a  growl  from 
the  bench  immediately  beneath  mine.  The  growl 
emanated  from  Antonio  Gallenga.  "  No  ;  confound 
him,"  he  remarked,  "  he  did  not  cock  his  pistol.  Why 
he  did  not  take  the  sword  of  Harmodius  and  Aristo- 
giton  and  stab  with  steel  in  myrtle  dressed  ?  "  I  vent- 
ured in  an  undertone  to  observe  that  they  managed 
these  things  better  in  Ital}-  ;  whereupon  Antonio  ut- 
tered another  growl  ;  but  there  was  a  smile  on  his 
honest  face  when,  looking  upwards,  he  said  that  I  was 
always  fond  of  my  joke.  Yes,  such  is  the  fact,  I  have 
always  been  of  opinion  that  this  is  a  very  funny  world. 
How  runs  the  old  epitaph  ? — 

"  Life  is  a  jest,  and  all  things  show  it, 
I  thought  so  once,  but  now  I  know  it." 

Only  the  worst  of  it  is  that  the  wrong  side  of  our 
mouth  is  that  on  which  we  are  sometimes  compelled 
to  laugh.  On  the  whole,  however,  I  consider  it  ju- 
dicious to  follow  the  advice  of  Beaumarchais's  Figaro 
and  laugh  as  often  as  we  possibly  can,  because  we 
never  know  at  what  moment  we  may  be  constrained 
to  weep. 

Then,  on  another  day  of  the  trial,  occurred  another 
incident  of  a  serio-comic  character.  It  suddenly  oc- 
curred to  M.  Wilfred  de  Fonvielle,  brother  of  Ulric, 
and  like  that  journalist  an  ultra-democratic  Republi- 
can, to  go  temporarily  stark,  staring  mad.  From  the 
bottom  of  the  court  he  raised  and  reiterated  once  and 
again  the  terrible  revolutionary  cry,  "  A  mort !  A 
mort !  "  In  vain  did  the  friends  by  whom  he  was 
surrounded  strive  to  calm  down  the  excitement  of  the 


THE   TRIAL   OF   PIERRE   BONAPARTE  147 

bellowing  journalist.  Whom,  or  what  he  was  de- 
nouncing death  against  did  not  appear  ;  but  as  he  res- 
olutely refused  to  hold  his  tongue,  the  chief  law 
officer  of  the  Crown  eventually  rose  and  demanded 
that  the  perturbator  should  be  brought  to  the  foot  of 
the  court  to  be  punished  for  contempt.  We  English 
journalists  thought  that  all  kinds  of  dreadful  things 
were  about  to  be  done  to  M.  de  Fonvielle;  but  to  our 
pleased  surprise  the  President,  M.  Glandaz,  did  not 
sentence  him  to  imprisonment,  but  after  bestowing  on 
him  quite  a  paternal  reproof  for  uttenng  a  cry  which 
was  alien  to  modern  French  manners,  fined  him  in 
quite  a  moderate  sum  for  his  malfeasance. 

I  should  have  said  that  when  Prince  Pierre  heard 
the  first  shout  of  "A  mort  !  A  viort ! ''  he  snatched 
up  his  red  morocco  pocket-book,  and  with  a  very 
agitated  expression  of  countenance,  fairly  made  a  bolt 
for  it  into  the  room  behind  the  dock,  closely  followed 
by  the  officer  of  the  gendarmerie  who  had  him  in 
charge.  Now  as  to  the  personal  courage  of  this  typi- 
cally Corsican  personage,  there  could  not  exist  the 
slightest  doubt.  He  had  braved  death  time  and  again  ; 
only  I  suspect  that  he  was  under  the  impression  that 
]M.  de  Fonvielle  and  his  friends  were  bent  on  storming 
the  dock,  and  tearing  him  to  pieces  ;  and  when  a  man 
thinks  that  he  is  within  measurable  distance  of  bodily 
dismemberment,  is  he  to  be  blamed  for  showing  his 
exasperating  foes  a  clean  pair  of  heels  ? 

Droller  still  was  the  third  incident  in  a  trial  which, 
as  I  shall  presently  endeavour  to  show,  was  fundament- 
ally a  farce.  At  a  late  stage  of  the  proceedings  the 
advocate  for  the  partic  civile,  who,  as  I  have  already 
said,  were  doing  their  best  to  press  home  the  case 
against  the  Prince,  called  as  a  witness  M.  Henri  Roche- 
fort.  The  ex-contributor  to  the  Figaro,  ex-editor  of 
the  Lanterne,  and  then  rddacteur-en-chef  of  La  Marseil- 


148  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


laise,  was  undergoing  a  term  of  imprisonment  at  Ste. 
Pelage  for  a  violent  attack  on  the  Emperor  and  the  Im- 
perial regime  ;  and  a  murmur  of  excitement  ran  through 
the  crowded  auditory  when  the  trenchant  pamphleteer 
was  brought  in  custody  into  court  and  placed  in  the 
witness-box.  Questioned  as  to  his  name  and  pre- 
names,  the  journalist,  who  used  formerly  to  be  spoken 
of  as  "  the  convict  Marquis,"  replied  that  his  name  was 
Victor  Henri  de  Rochefort  Lu^ay,  born  at  Paris  in 
1830.  His  examination  both  by  counsel  for  the  prose- 
cution and  the  defence  was  a  delicious  exhibition  on 
his  part  of  adroit  fencing.  He  alternately  parried  and 
attacked  ;  and  while  professing  the  utmost  respect  for 
the  Court,  took  occasion  to  sneer  at  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  a  lady  whom  he  called  Lucretia — meaning 
Madame  Charles  Bonaparte,  the  mother  of  Napoleon 
the  Great — and  to  insinuate  that  he  was  the  illegiti- 
mate offspring  of  the  Comte  de  Marboeuf,  Governor  of 
Corsica ;  while  with  another  skilfully  malignant  allu- 
sion to  the  Dutch  Admiral  Verhuel,  he  induced  the 
inference  that  that  distinguished  Batavian,  and  not 
Louis  Bonaparte  was  the  father  of  the  Emperor  Napo- 
leon in.  This  sliest  of  sly  hits  aroused  the  official  ire 
of  the  Public  Prosecutor,  a  very  tall,  gaunt  function- 
ary, with  a  dolorous  expression  of  countenance,  who, 
when  he  stood  up  in  his  judicial  scarlet,  was  qualified 
by  Gallenga  as  Le  grand  spectre  rouge.  He  was  in  the 
middle  of  a  long-winded  oration  rebuking  the  witness 
Rochefort  for  his  moral  turpitude,  when  a  series  of 
titters,  culminating  in  a  burst  of  laughter,  were  audible 
in  court.  The  editor  of  the  Marseillaise  had  gone 
quietly  to  sleep.  It  was,  possibl)%  that  which  is  popu- 
larly known  as  "  a  cat's  sleep  :  "  such  a  factitious  slum- 
ber, perhaps,  as  that  in  which  Watts  Phillips  used  to 
tell  us  was  once  indulged  by  Mr.  Labouchere,  M.P., 
while  Watts  was  reading  a  new  drama  to  the  then 


THE   TRIAL   OF   PIERRE   BONAPARTE  149 

Member  for  Middlesex.  But  it  was  difficult  to  beat 
the  playwright  at  the  game  of  intellectual  tactics.  He 
read  the  manuscript  slowly  and  more  slowly,  and  event- 
ually subsided  into  "  a  cat's  sleep  "  of  his  own,  upon 
which  Mr.  Labouchere  timeously  woke  up.  The  Pub- 
lic Prosecutor,  however,  found  that  he  could  make 
nothing  sleeping  or  waking  of  Henri  Rochefort,  whom, 
among  fresh  cachinnations  on  the  part  of  the  public, 
he  sternly  bade  to  stand  down.  As  he  was  being  con- 
ducted out  of  coi.«"t  the  occupants  of  the  front  row 
of  the  press  tribune  availed  themselves  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  press  heartily  the  hand  of  the  terrible  satirist ; 
and  then  the  question  was  asked  how  he  had  come 
down  from  Paris.  "  First-class  coupe  between  two 
gendarmes,"  he  replied.  "  The  coupe  quite  compli- 
mentary.    Mcrci  du  compliment T 

A  few  more  witnesses  were  heard,  including  a  dark 
complexioned,  burly-looking  gentleman,  M.  Paul  de 
Cassagnac,  who  incidentally  remarked  that  he  was  ex- 
tremely devoted  to  the  Prince.  His  evidence,  how- 
ever, could  throw  no  kind  of  light  on  the  manner  in 
which  poor  Victor  Noir  came  by  his  death,  and  shortly 
after  M.  de  Cassagnac's  dismissal  from  the  witness-box 
the  President  summed  up  fully,  and,  as  I  thought,  very 
fairly,  to  both  parties.  Then  there  was  an  interval  for 
luncheon;  the  prisoner  w^as  taken  away;  the  judges 
left  the  bench  ;  and  the  jury  retired  to  consider  their 
verdict.  A  whole  hour  elapsed  before  they  came  into 
court  again.  "  Que  diable  !  "  exclaimed  my  next  neigh- 
bour, a  Parisian  feiiilletonnist, "  what  are  the  ganacJics 
waiting  for  ?  Hadn't  they  made  up  their  minds  before 
they  entered  the  box  ?  "  "  Not  so,"  replied  an  equally 
satirical  gentleman  of  the  press,  his  neighbour.  "  They 
are  waiting  for  the  verdict  to  be  telegraphed  from 
Paris." 

At  length,  however,  you  heard  that  tramping  of  the 


I50  LIFE   OF    GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

soles  of  boots  which  I  always  consider  to  be  peculiarly 
characteristic  of  a  jury  entering  or  leaving  the  box. 
Of  course,  the  idea  is  a  nonsensical  one  ;  yet,  be  it  as 
it  may,  I  always  fancy  that  the  footsteps  of  jurymen, 
who  obviously  get  their  boots  from  all  kinds  of  mak- 
ers, have  a  sound  of  their  own,  just  as  the  boots  of 
policemen  and  soldiers,  and  the  shoes  of  convicts  have 
all  their  separate  reverberations.  The  jury  unani- 
mously acquitted  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte  of  the  mur- 
der of  Victor  Noir,  otherwise  Yvan  Salmon :  thus 
practically  accepting  the  theory  of  the  defence,  that 
the  Prince  had  only  legitimately  defended  himself 
under  great  provocation,  both  from  the  deceased  and 
his  companion.  Monsieur  Ulric  de  Fonvielle.  Once 
more  did  Pieri-e  Bonaparte  make  a  clutch  at  his  red 
morocco  portfolio  ;  but  this  time  it  was  with  an  air  of 
triumph  that  he  did  so ;  and,  bowing  to  the  court,  he 
was  about  to  retire  in  joyous  haste,  when  he  was  re- 
called by  the  voice  of  the  Procureur-General.  "Am  I 
not  free?"  he  asked  briskly.  "No,  Prince,"  replied  the 
law  officer  ;  "  the  partie  civile  are  about  to  plead."  We 
did  not  stay  to  listen  to  the  litigation  as  to  the  amount 
of  damages  due  to  the  bereaved  family  of  Victor  Noir, 
for  we  had  had  no  lunch.  But  while  my  colleagues 
and  myself  were  refreshing  ourselves,  news  arrived 
that  the  court  had  awarded  against  the  Prince  a  sola- 
tium of  twenty  thousand  francs,  payable  to  the  kindred 
of  the  dead  journalist. 

A  very  curious  scene  occurred  to  wind  up  this 
strange  drama.  No  sooner  was  Prince  Pierre  liber- 
ated from  the  Penitentiary,  where  he  had  been  con- 
fined since  the  beginning  of  the  trial,  than  he  drove 
straight  to  the  hotel,  where  he  received  what  is 
termed  in  the  absurd  modern  newspaper  parlance  an 
"ovation."  The  Prince's  brow  was  assuredly  not  en- 
circled with  a  wreath  of  myrtle.     He  bore  no  sceptre 


THE   TRIAL   OF   PIERRE   BONAPARTE  151 

in  his  hand  ;  the  proceedings  were  not  enlivened  by  a 
band  of  iiute-players  ;  nor  did  the  ceremonies  come  to 
a  close  with  the  sacrifice  of  a  sheep :  unless,  indeed, 
the  acquitted  Prince  partook  at  his  evening  repast  of 
gigot  dc  niouton  a  la  Provengale,  or  cotelettes  a  la  Soubisc. 
But  a  mob  of  his  sympathisers  pressed  round  him, 
seized  his  hand,  plucked  at  the  skirts  of  his  coat,  and 
exchanged  downright  effusive  embraces  Avith  him. 
He  was  well  out  of  it. 

After  the  fall  of  the  Second  Empire,  which  brought 
with  it  the  withdrawal  of  his  own  pension.  Prince 
Pierre,  I  am  afraid,  fell  for  a  time  on  evil  days.  At  all 
events,  I  have  before  me  a  highly-glazed  card,  bearing 
the  inscription,  "  Princesse  Pierre  Buonaparte:  Robes." 
Now  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  plucky  Princess, 
the  militant  Corsican  gentleman's  wife,  kept  the  ex- 
Imperial  pot  boiling  by  carrying  on  the  business  of  a 
dressmaker  somewhere  in  New  Bond  Street. 


CHAPTER   XLV 

THE   WAR   OF    1 8/0 

Back  to  England,  and  back  to  work.  I  have  nothing 
to  record  that  would  be  of  interest  to  my  readers 
touching  the  winter  and  spring  of  1870;  but  in  the 
third  week  of  July  a  series  of  very  momentous  things 
began  to  occur,  some  of  which  I  had,  in  my  capacity 
as  a  journalist,  to  chronicle.  War  with  Prussia  was 
resolved  on  by  the  French  Government  on  the  15th  of 
July,  and  the  declaration  delivered  at  Berlin  on  the 
19th.  On  the  same  day  the  North  German  Parlia- 
ment met,  and  engaged  to  support  Prussia  in  the  com- 
ing struggle ;  and  the  next  day  Wurtemberg,  Bavaria, 
Baden,  and  Hesse  Darmstadt  declared  war  against 
France,  and  took  steps  to  send  contingents  to  the 
Prussian  army.  It  was  immediately  settled  in  Fleet 
Street  that  I  was  to  proceed  to  Paris  at  once  ;  and, 
after  remaining  a  few  days  there,  endeavouring  to  as- 
certain the  state  of  public  opinion  in  the  capital,  and 
events  as  they  occurred  day  by  day,  I  was,  so  soon  as 
the  Emperor  left  Paris,  to  go  to  Metz,  in  the  East  of 
France,  which  city — Mctz  la  Piicelle,  as  she  was  then 
proudly  called,  as  a  hitherto  impregnable  fortress — 
was  to  be  for  a  time  the  Imperial  head-quarters.  After 
that,  I  was  to  await,  as  Mr.  Micawber  awaited,  for 
something  to  turn  up. 

We  needed,  of  course,  a  professionally  military  war 
correspondent  to  do  the  lighting ;  and  the  Times  had 
already  secured  the  services  of  a  dashing  and  very 
clever  Guardsman,  Colonel,  or  Captain  "  Kit "  Pem- 


THE   WAR   OF    1870  1 53 


berton,    Avho     had    already    distinguished    himself    in 
literature  by  a  vivacious  novel  of  military  life,  of  the 
"  Digby  Grand  "  type,  which  he  published  under  the 
nom  de  guerre  of  "  Leo."     But  in  those  days  military 
gentlemen  who  could  writd  with  ease  were   not  very 
easy  to  find ;  and  it  was  even  more   difficult  to  light 
on   officers  who    possessed    any    marked    attainments 
as    linguists.     In  this    last    respect,  it    seems    to    me, 
that  the  valiant  warriors  who  fought  under  Welling- 
ton, in  the  Peninsula,  and  under  other  prominent  com- 
manders in  the  Two  Sicilies,  were  much  better  skilled 
in  the  tongues  than  the  officers  of  the  present  genera- 
tion.    Of  course,  I  know  what  of  late  years  has  been 
done  in  this  direction  by  the  course  of  linguistic  stud- 
ies pursued  at  the  Royal  Staff  College.     Our  contem- 
porary Sons  of   Mars  often  "  take  up  "  Russian,  and, 
for  aught  I  know,  Arabic  and  Hindustani.     But  from 
the  beginning  of  the  century  to  the  crowning  victory 
of  Waterloo    the   candidate  for  a  commission   in   the 
British  army  was  not  vexed  by  any  literary  or  scien- 
tific examination.     A  young  fellow  of  sixteen  or  sev- 
enteen who  desired  to  obtain  an  ensigncy  in  the  Line 
had  only,  under  the  dear  old  purchase  system,  to  pay 
ii"450  into  Messrs.  Cox    and  Greenwood's,  and,  after 
a  very  brief    delay,    if    the    medical    board    certified 
that  he  was  physically  "  fit,"  and  his  parents  or  guar- 
dians, or  his  parish  clergyman   had  vouched  for  the 
respectability   of    his   moral    character,  he    was   duly 
gazetted  as  an  ensign,  say  in  the  i5Qth   Foot,  joined 
his  regiment,  and,  naturally,  fought  as  the  cubs  of  the 
British  lion  always  fight. 

This  was,  perhaps,  a  rough  and  ready  method  of 
manufacturing  officers.  Still  have  I  known,  in  my 
childhood,  scores  of  Peninsular  officers  of  the  highest 
distinction  who,  although  they  had  become  wholly 
oblivious   of   the    Greek   and    Latin    which    they  had 


154  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

learned,  or  tried  to  learn,  at  Eton  or  Harrow,  and 
were  altogether  innocent  of  Euclid,  spoke  Spanish 
and  Italian  with  fluency  and  accuracy.  They  had  be- 
come conversant  with  the  Castilian  speech  during  the 
war  in  Spain ;  and  they  had  acquired  the  Tuscan 
tongue  in  Sicily,  where,  for  years.  Great  Britain  main- 
tained a  strong  military  force ;  while  others  spoke 
French,  which  they  had  learned  at  that  military  school 
at  Angers  where  young  Arthur  Wellesley  had  him- 
self studied.  The  Prince  Imperial,  after  his  father's 
downfafl,  graduated  as  a  cadet  at  the  Royal  Military 
Academy,  Woolwich.  Poor  Don  Alfonso  of  Spain 
was  summoned  from  the  military  school  of  Sandhurst, 
to  ascend  the  throne  of  Spain.  Wh}^,  with  the  pre- 
cedent of  Angers  before  us,  should  not  English  lads 
be  sent  for  awhile  to  St.  Cyr,  to  the  Ecole  Polytech- 
nique,  or  to  Saumur  ;  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  if 
they  are  scions  of  noble  British  families,  to  the  Ecole 
des  Pages  at  St.  Petersburg,  which  is  one  of  the  finest 
military  academies  in  Europe?  Can  it  be  that  mod- 
ern continental  governments  are  less  liberal  in  their 
views  of  international  military  training  than  the  old 
French  Bourbons  were? 

Sprightly  Felix  Whitehurst  again  made  interest  at 
the  Tuileries  and  the  Ministry  of  War  to  obtain  per- 
mission for  the  not  yet  famed  special  war  correspond- 
ent and  myself  to  proceed  to  the  front.  He  was  met 
by  a  courteous  but  positive  refusal  from  the  Emperor 
himself,  who  remarked  that  Prince  Gortschakoff  had 
told  him  that  during  the  war  in  the  Crimea,  the  War 
Office  at  St.  Petersburg  was  always  perfectly  au  con- 
rant  with  what  was  going  on  at  the  British  headquar- 
ters before  Sebastopol  through  the  brilliant  com- 
munications forwarded  to  the  Times  newspaper  by 
"Monsieur  William  Russell."  Ceesar  smiled  as  he 
made  this  remark  ;  but  it  was  a  smile  that  might  be, 


THE   WAR   OF    1870  155 


and  was,  taken  as  equivalent  to  a  douche  of  the  ver}^ 
coldest  cold  water.  The  only  concession  which  he 
would  make  was  that  foreign  correspondents  would 
not  be  molested  so  long  as  they  kept  with  the  rear  of 
the  Imperial  army  ;  and  to  this  he  added,  with  another 
significant  smile,  that  they  might  from  time  to  time 
be  furnished  with  trustworthy  information  of  what 
was  going  on  at  the  front : — which  information  would 
be  judiciously  conveyed  to  them  by  the  proper  author- 
ities. 

As  an  old  journalistic  hand  I  was  able  to  estimate  in 
advance  the  probable  value  of  such  judicious  informa- 
tion. There  was  a  dear  old  gentleman  at  the  Ministry 
of  the  Interior,  the  father  I  believe  of  the  well-known 
Bonapartist  Deputy  M.  Robert  Mitchell.  M.  Mitchell 
pere  was  in  charge  of  the  Press  Department  at  the 
Ministry ;  and  after  I  had  been  introduced  to  him  by 
his  son  the  courteous  anxiety  which  he  displayed  to 
furnish  me  from  day  to  day  with  "  trustworthy  infor- 
mation "  was  almost  overwhelming  ;  but  I  feared  the 
Greeks  and  the  gifts  they  gave,  and  did  not  trouble 
Mr.  Mitchell,  senior,  much.  I  failed  to  see  the  good, 
as  the  French  proverbial  locution  puts  it,  of  seeking 
for  noon  at  fourteen  o'clock. 

Paris  during  the  few  days  that  I  remained  there  was 
in  the  strangest  of  conditions.  The  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation were  most  undoubtedly  enthusiastically  in  fa- 
vour of  the  war  ;  and  in  society  you  were  freely  told 
that  the  guiding  spirit  in  provoking  hostilities  between 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  and  King  William  of  Prussia 
had  been  the  Empress  Eugenie,  and  that  she  had  tri- 
umphantly spoken  of  the  struggle  which  was  imminent 
as  "  Ma  guerre."  It  would  have  been  far  better  for 
herself,  her  husband,  and  her  son  if  she  had  not  insti- 
gated— if  she  did  instigate — the  war  which  ushered  in 
rannee  terrible. 


156  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

The  streets  of  the  capital  on  the  23d  of  July  were 
thickly  placarded  with  copies  of  an  Imperial  proclama- 
tion in  which  Napoleon  announced  that,  to  vindicate 
the  national  honour,  he  was  about,  alone,  to  take  in 
hand  the  interests  of  the  country.  Incidentally,  like- 
wise, the  Emperor  made  this  statement,  '^  J'avicne  inoii 
jeuiic  fils  avec  moi'' — an  utterance  the  grammatical  or- 
thodoxy of  which  the  philosophers  at  Nice  began  to 
impugn  ;  arguing  that  it  was  only  to  the  army  at  the 
front  the  Emperor  could  say  that  he  was  bringing  the 
Prince  Imperial ;  whereas  to  the  Parisians  he  should 
have  said — "■  J'ejnmenc  inon  fils  :  "  meaning  that  he  was 
taking  his  son  with  him  from  the  metropolis  to  the 
seat  of  war.  Then  among  the  boulevard  loungers 
there  was  current  a  ridiculous  "  shave  "  to  the  effect 
that  the  last  telegraphic  dispatch  wired  from  Germany 
by  the  diplomatist  Count  Benedetti  to  the  French 
Foreign  Office,  stating  that  war  could  not  possibly  be 
averted,  wound  up  with  this  remarkable  peroration  : 
"  Don't  put  so  much  horse-flesh  in  your  next  consign- 
ment of  sausages."  It  turned  out  afterwards,  so  the 
story  went,  that  in  the  hurry  and  scurr}^  of  overwork 
at  the  German  telegraph  office  a  purely  commercial 
communication  from  a  German  pork-butcher  named 
Benedict  had  got  mixed  up  with,  and  tailed  on,  to  the 
telegram  from  Count  Benedetti. 

The  scenes  at  the  Eastern  Railway  terminus  were 
throughout  the  day  and  nearly  throughout  the  night 
of  a  most  animated  and  excited  description.  I  remem- 
ber walking  home  one  morning  at  daybreak  after  a 
very  grand  entertainment  at  which  there  had  been 
much  dancing  and  supping,  and  many  gorgeous  uni- 
forms, and  many  beautiful  ladies  blazing  with  dia- 
monds; and  meeting  a  regiment  of  Cuirassiers  at  its 
full  strength,  the  men  with  bundles  of  forage  artisti- 
cally made  up  in  globular  form  secured  to  their  saddles 


THE   WAR   OF    1870  1 57 

who  were  on  their  march  to  the  terminus.  While  I 
was  gazing-  at  them  a  ragged  old  woman,  employed  by 
the  municipality  as  a  street  sweeper — why  do  not  our 
London  parishes  employ  poor  but  valid  old  females 
as  what  1  may  call  "outdoor  charwomen"  in  summer 
weather? — was  inspecting  with  evidently  affectionate 
interest  the  several  squadrons  of  Cuirassiers.  She 
waved  aloft  her  broom  in  patriotic  approbation,  where- 
upon the  colonel  in  command  brought  his  drawn  sabre 
to  the  salute.  When  the  regiment  had  passed,  the 
old  lady  with  the  broom  uttered  a  sigh  of  gratified 
relief.  She  took  a  pinch  of  snuff  and  offered  me  one  ; 
saying,  at  the  same  time  :  "  J'ai  toujours  aime  la  grosse 
cavalcricS' 

Yet  another  curious  and  pathetic  sign  of  the  times 
was  the  strong  manifestation  of  religious  feeling 
among  the  female  population  of  Paris.  Every  church 
in  the  great  city,  from  Notre  Dame  to  St.  Germain- 
des-Pres,  from  the  Madeleine  to  St.  Philippe-du-Roule, 
was  thronged  from  matins  to  vespers  by  women  of 
every  class,  not  so  much  for  the  purpose  of  attending 
the  services  as  for  that  of  burning  votive  tapers  to  the 
Virgin  and  to  their  favourite  saints,  while  the  Dames 
de  la  Halle,  after  kindling  their  candles  at  their  favour- 
ite church  of  St.  Eustache,  used  to  lie  in  wait  for 
regiments  on  the  march,  and  press  sausages  and  fruit, 
and  packets  of  tobacco  on  the  soldiers. 

I  repeat  that  for  a  time  the  war  with  Germany  was 
a  thoroughly  popular  one.  Had  not  millions  of 
French  peasants  denoted  "  OtW  in  response  to  the 
question  asked  at  the  plebiscitum  of  May,  1869,  to  as- 
certain whether  the  entire  French  people  were  content 
with  the  Imperial  rule  or  not?  Had  not  Marshal 
Leboeuf  declared  that  the  equipment  of  the  French 
soldier  was  altogether  complete  and  perfect  to  the  last 
button  of  the  last  gaiter?     Had  not  the  Prime  Minis- 


158  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

ter,  M.  Emile  OUivier,  announced  in  the  Legislative 
Chamber  that  he  entered  on  the  war  with  a  light 
heart ;  and,  finally,  was  not  the  second  in  command  of 
the  Imperial  Legions  to  be  Marshal  MacMahon,  the 
hero  of  Magenta  and  Solferino?  So  everything  wore 
a  roseate  aspect.  The  theatres  were  crammed  ;  the 
hotels  were  full  of  wealthy  English  people  ;  the  ca/cs 
and  restaurants  did  a  roaring  business  ;  the  boulevard 
badauds  gaily  expressed  their  opinion  that  the  French 
army  would  only  have  to  make  a  military  promenade 
in  the  Prussian  capital  to  the  music  of  military  bands 
playing  at  intervals  "  Partant  pour  la  Syrie,''  and  "  La 
Marseillaise  ;  "  while  at  night  the  great  line  of  boule- 
vards exhibited,  so  soon  as  the  playhouses  had  closed 
their  doors,  a  procession  of  open  carriages  filled  with 
ladies  in  dazzling  evening  toilettes  rivalling  those  of 
the  historical  Promenade  de  Longchamps  were  preceded 
and  followed  by  gangs  of  genuine  or  fictitious  working 
people,  mostly  clad  in  white  blouses,  who  waved  aloft 
lighted  torches  and  shouted  in  deafening  unison :  '■^  A 
Berlin  I  A  Berlin  !  A  Berlin  I  "  I  did  my  best  to  send 
home  day  by  day  faithful  narratives  of  the  things 
which  I  saw  ;  and  then  having  received  a  letter  from 
Fleet  Street  that  I  was  to  venture  on  the  war-path,  I 
packed  up  a  valise  of  very  modest  dimensions,  and 
started  by  rail  for  Metz.  Midway,  our  train,  although 
an  express,  was  shunted.  We  very  soon  knew  the 
reason  why  :  for  first  there  dashed  by  a  pilot  engine 
and  next  came  a  train  of  saloon  carriages,  the  panels 
painted  the  Imperial  green  and  bearing  the  Imperial 
cognisance  in  gold.  Napoleon  III.  and  his  young  son 
Louis,  full  corporal  in  the  Grenadiers  of  the  Guard, 
were  in  that  train. 

The  fortress  of  Metz  was  swarming  with  soldiers  of 
every  arm  of  the  service;  and  the  Imperial  Guard,  in 
particular,  made  the   most  grandiose  of  shows.     The 


THE   WAR   OF    1870  1 59 


city  was  not  strong  in  hotels,  and  those  there  were 
were  full  to  repletion  with  guests,  including  many- 
newspaper  correspondents  —  English,  French,  and 
American,  We  tried  at  first  to  engage  furnished  lodg- 
ings ;  but  the  people  to  whom  we  applied  with  that 
intent  manifested  a  strange  reluctance  to  receive  us. 
I  ceased  after  awhile  to  be  surprised  at  it,  when  I 
learned  that  the  inhabitants  of  Metz  were  desperately 
afraid  of  harbouring  Prussian  spies,  with  whom  the 
town  was  said  to  be  infested.  Luckily  for  the  contin- 
gent of  English  journalists,  I  happened  to  know  M. 
Pietri,  whom  1  had  met  in  Algeria,  and  who  had  shown 
me  much  courtesy  ;  so  I  referred  the  landlord  of  the 
principal  hotel  first  to  the  police,  and  next  to  the  Em- 
peror's private  secretary.  These  references,  together 
with  the  exhibition  of  our  passports,  soon  satisfied  the 
landlord,  who  provided  fairly  comfortable  accommo- 
dation for  at  least  three  of  our  number,  while  to  me  he 
obligingly  gave  up  his  wife's  own  pretty  little  private 
salon,  which  an  agile  chambermaid  very  soon  con- 
verted into  a  bedroom. 

I  remember  that  sleeping  apartment  well,  through 
the  circumstance  that  my  next-door  neighbour  being 
a  corpulent  French  Colonel  of  Artillery,  who,  while 
making  his  toilette  in  the  morning,  used  to  troll  out  a 
song,  the  burden  of  which  was  "  Vive  la  gloire !  vive 
la  gloire ;  la  gloire  de  la  France  et  des  Francais  !  "  I 
must  own  that  this  martial  ditty  became,  after  four  or 
five  days,  somewhat  wearisome  in  its  monotony  ;  but 
one  morning,  when  the  news  had  arrived  of  the  first 
reverses  which  the  French  arms  had  sustained  on  the 
German  frontier,  the  colonel's  refrain  was  curiously 
varied.  He  got  through  the  first  verse  very  neatly, 
but  he  broke  down  over  the  "  glor}-  "  burden,  and  after 
ejaculating  "  Aii  diable  la  gloire,  je  me fiche  pas  mal  de  la 
gloire^'  subsided  into   moody   silence.     He  came  out, 


l6o  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

however,  very  strong"  that  evening  at  the  absinthe 
hour  at  a  table  in  the  hotel  garden,  adjoining  the  table 
where  the  English  press  representatives  were  accus- 
tomed to  meet.  He  was  especially  hot  in  denouncing 
Prussian  spies  to  the  corpulent  staff  officers,  his 
friends  ;  and  loudly  expressed  his  determination,  if  any 
such  gredins  were  brought  before  him  within  the  limits 
of  his  command,  to  give  them  such  a  short  shrift  as 
twelve  rifle  balls  would  expeditiously  furnish.  ^^  Douze 
ballcs,  messieurs  !  Dojize  balles  !  Rien  que  ^a  pour  ce  tas 
de  coquins ;''  and  as  bespoke  he  scowled  malignantly 
at  the  harmless  necessary  representatives  of  the  Eng- 
lish Fourth  Estate. 

The  journalists  assembled  at  Metz  were  a  band  of 
brothers ;  and  lengthened  experience  leads  me  to  the 
conclusion  that  travelling  special  correspondents  when 
they  meet  are  almost  invariably  on  terms  of  cordial 
friendship,  and  help  one  another  so  far  as  they  are  able, 
in  every  possible  manner.  Perhaps  it  is  the  knowl- 
edge that  they  are  discharging  a  common  duty,  and 
frequently  incurring  a  common  danger  that  tightens 
the  bond  of  good  fellowship  among  them.  At  Metz 
we  had  Nicholas  Woods,  who  had  been  in  the  Crimea 
for  the  Morning  Herald,  who  had  afterwards  done  good 
service  for  the  Times  and  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  but 
who,  on  the  outset  of  the  Franco-German  War,  had 
been  commissioned  by  an  important  Glasgow  journal, 
to  enlighten  North  Britain  as  to  the  conduct  of  the 
campaign,  which  few  failed  to  foresee  would  be  mo- 
mentous. Nicholas  Woods  died  far  too  early,  but  not 
too  prematurely  to  have  gained  the  love  of  a  large 
number  of  friends.  His  journalistic  masterpieces  I 
hold  to  have  been  his  description  of  the  great  prize- 
fight between  Sayers  and  Heenan  ;  his  diary  of  the 
laying,  by  the  storm-tossed  Agamemnon,  of  the  Atlantic 
cable,  and  his  narrative— in  the  Pall  Mall,  I  think— of 


THE   WAR   OF    1 8/0  l6l 

what  befel  him  while  having  assumed  a  ragged  garb, 
he  got  himself  locked  up  with  the  connivance  of  an 
inspector  of  police,  who  was,  in  the  joke,  in  the  cells 
attached  to  the  Grand  Stand  at  Epsom,  on  the  Derby 
Da}'.  Another  very  noteworthy  correspondent  at 
Metz  was  that  Henry  Mayhew,  of  whom  I  have  al- 
ready spoken,  and  who  brought  with  him  his  son 
Athol.  Both  father  and  son  had  long  resided  in  Ger- 
many, and  were  finished  Teutonic  scholars.  For  the 
Standard,  had  come  out  Mr.  John  Augustus  O'Shea, 
the  most  versatile  and  the  most  courageous  of  Hiber- 
nian journalists.  He  had  been  everywhere  and  seen 
everything,  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  in  both  hemi- 
spheres ;  and  I  rejoice  to  say  that,  although  I  see  him 
very  rarely,  he  is  still  altogether  fit  and  valid.  Our 
little  party  was  completed  by  the  presence  of  two  dis- 
tinguished artists.  Mr.  Simpson,  who  had  served  the 
Illustrated  London  News  literally  from  China  to  Peru, 
was  there;  as  was  likewise  that  prince  of  rapid  sketch- 
ers,  and  master  of  impressionable  effects,  Mr.  Sydney 
Hall,  who  held  a  commission  from  the  GrapJiic. 

Although  we  had  all  plenty  of  mone}^  and  there  was 
a  great  deal  to  see  at  Metz  which  was  amusing  and 
picturesque,  our  position  was  not  in  all  respects  a  com- 
fortable one.  The  authorities  sternl}^  refused  to  allow 
us  to  go  to  the  front ;  although  Henry  Mayhew  and  his 
son,  at  great  personal  risk,  did  contrive  to  push  on  to 
the  frontier,  where  they  witnessed,  on  July  30th,  the 
repulse  of  a  French  force,  at  Saarbriick.  But  we 
fretted  at  being  condemned  to  a  condition  of  compara- 
tive inactivity  ;  and  our  restlessness  was  aggravated  by 
the  setting  in  of  a  violent  Prussian  spy  mania  at  Metz. 
I  was  not  suspected  of  being  an  "  cspion  "  by  the  people 
at  the  hotel  where  I  lived,  but  the  gendarmerie  and  the 
detectives  kept  the  sharpest  and  the  most  malevolent 
eyes  upon  us;  and  one  night  the  correspondent  of  a 
II. — II 


l62  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


Scotch  paper,  whose  name  I  forget,  was  incautious 
enough  to  wander  about  the  camp,  and  seek  to  pick  up 
information  by  talking  with  the  soldiers  at  the  canteens. 
At  once  he  was  denounced  by  a  vigilant  corporal  as  a 
Prussian  spy  ;  since  the  poor  gentleman  spoke  French 
very  badly,  and  his  accusers  were  unable  to  dis- 
criminate between  Teutonic  and  Caledonian  Gaelic ; 
so  he  was  hauled  away  into  captivity.  Then,  three  or 
four  days  afterwards,  Mr.  J.  A.  O'Shea  managed  to  get, 
quite  innocently,  into  trouble  with  the  police,  and  made 
his  appearance  at  the  Hotel  de  I'Europe,  between  two 
ofendarmes,  to  inform  us  that  he  was  at  once  to  be  de- 
livered  over  to  the  tormentors. 

I  have  omitted  to  state  that  the  ranks  of  our  littb 
press-gang  were  swelled  by  a  clever  French  gentleman, 
whose  real  name  was  Nicolas  Thieblin,  but  who,  for 
I  some  reason  best  known  to  himself,  had  adopted  the 
'  noin  de  guerre  of  Azamat  Batouk,  and  passed  himself  ofl 
as  a  Turk.  He  wrote  English  with  perfect  fluency, 
and  was  the  correspondent  of  the  Pall  Mall  Gacctte. 
Some  ten  years  afterwards  I  came  across  him  in  New 
York  City,  where  he  was  on  the  staff  of  some  influential 
local  journal.  "  Azamat  Batouk,"  who  was  an  ex- 
tremely shrewd  individual,  suggested  that,  looking  at 
the  fact  of  the  arrest  of  Mr.  O'Shea,  was  clearly  the 
stupidest  of  blunders  on  the  part  of  the  police,  pro- 
posed that  the  foreign  journalists  should,  in  a  body, 
wait  upon  the  Provost-Marshal,  General  Saint  Sauveur, 
and  state  our  case  to  him.  We  informed  the  two  gen- 
darmes of  our  intention ;  but  these  military  bobbies, 
who  were  quite  as  thick-headed  as  the  two  immortal 
gendarmes  in  Genevieve  de  Brabant,  could  not  deprive 
themselves  of  the  pleasure  of  marching  Mr.  O'Shea 
between  them  to  the  Provost-Marshal's  quarters,  ac- 
celerating his  pace  now  and  then  by  a  stern  "  Plus  vite 
que  ccla  !  "     I  feel  persuaded  that  one  of  these  worthy 


THE   WAR   OF    187O  163 

fellows  fumbled  at  least  three  times  in  his  coat-tail 
pocket  to  make  sure  that  he  was  furnished  with  the 
handcuffs  with  which  he  hoped  to  decorate  the  wrists 
of  the  supposed  cspion  priissien. 

We  found  General  de  Saint  Sauveur,  an  elderly 
gentleman,  with  grey  moustaches,  with  many  crosses 
and  medals  on  the  breast  of  his  undress  uniform,  and 
in  spotless  white  trousers,  and  varnished  boots,  the 
most  courteous  and  the  most  obliging  of  Grands  Prevots. 
He  heard  our  story  with  a  succession  of  deprecatory 
shrugs  of  the  shoulders,  alternating  by  conciliatory 
smiles.  "  I  know  very  well,  gentlemen,"  he  said  at 
length,  "  that  3'ou  are  no  more  Prussian  spies  than  I 
am  one  ;  inais  qzie  voidez-vous  ? — Ics  temps  sont  si  durs.  I 
have  the  highest  respect  for  the  intelligence  and  the 
integrity  of  the  English  Press.  I  served  in  the  Crimea, 
and  had  the  honour  to  know  Monsieur  Rousselle. 
Mais  que  voulez-voiis  f  I  want  to  let  everybody  out. 
J'ai  envie  de  rcldcJier  ce  paiivre  Monsieur T  He  was  al- 
luding to  the  gentleman  with  the  Scotch  name,  which 
I  forget.  "  Captain,"  he  continued,  turning  to  a  young 
and  handsome  aide-de-camp,  "  supposing  you  step  over 
to  the  Commandant  de  Place,  and  ask  him  to  sanction 
the  liberation  of  Monsieur,  and  M.  Oshie."  To  my 
amazement,  the  young  and  good-looking  aide-de-camp 
folded  his  arms  and  said:  ''  Mon  Genera/,  I  refuse  re- 
spectfully, but  categorically,  to  obtemperate  to  your 
demand.  Whenever  I  wait  on  the  Commandant  de 
Place  he  treats  me  as  le  dernier  des  derniers.  II  menace 
de  me  flanqiier  a  la  parte ;  il  mappelle  cJienapan.  1  am 
willing  d'aller  an  feu,  and  to  die  for  the  Emperor ;  but 
to  the  Commandant  de  Place  I  will  not  go."  Surely 
the  recalcitrant  aide-de-camp  must  have  been  the  Gen- 
eral's nephew ;  or  he  would  never  have  ventured  to 
oppose  the  orders  of  his  superior  officer.  Again  the 
Grand  Pr^vot  shrugged  his  shoulders ;  but  his  smiles 


l64  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


grew  more  frequent,  and  at  length  he  said,  "  I  think ; 
nay,  I  am  sure,  that  I  have  the  power  to  liberate  these 
three  gentlemen.  The  Scotch  one  was  certainly  a  little 
imprudent ;  but  Monsieur  Oshie  has  evidently  been  the 
victim  of  excessive  zeal  on  the  part  of  the  gendarmerie." 
So  Mr.  J.  A.  O'Shea,  alias  "  Oshie,"  was  at  once  set  at 
liberty,  the  General  signing  an  order  for  the  immediate 
discharge  of  the  Scotch  journalist,  much  to  the  disgust 
of  the  two  gendarmes,  who  would  have  dearly  liked  to 
clap  the  "  darbies  "  on  him,  and  march  him  off  to  gaol. 

We  tendered  our  thanks  and  made  our  bows  to  the 
Grand  Pre'vot,  and  left  his  quarters  :  not  without,  how- 
ever, a  protest  from  the  ill-conditioned  representative 
of  a  Belgian  newspaper,  who  loudly  expressed  his 
opinion  that  Henry  and  Athol  Mayhew  must  be  Prus- 
sian spies,  because  they  spoke  German  so  well,  and 
that  Mr.  O'Shea  ought  to  be  placed  in  the  same  cate- 
gory, in  consequence  of  his  fluent  French,  The  intel- 
ligent Flemish  correspondent  added  that  no  English- 
man could  ever  make  himself  fully  understood  in  the 
French  tongue.  To  this  Mr.  O'Shea  aptly  made  an- 
swer that  he  was  not  an  Englishman,  but  an  Irishman; 
and  that  to  all  natives  of  the  Emerald  Isle,  French 
came  naturally.  So  we  "  sat,"  figuratively  speaking, 
on  the  cantankerous  correspondent  of  the  Belgian 
journal ;  and  Athol  Mayhew  told  him  that  if  he  inter- 
fered with  us  again,  he  would  get  a  good  beating.  He 
gave  us  after  that  the  widest  of  berths. 

But  worse  remained  behind.  The  Emperor's  head- 
quarters were  at  the  Hotel  of  the  Prefecture  ;  and  one 
morning,  the  Imperial  equipages  and  their  horses  being 
exercised  in  the  Grande  Place,  Mr.  Simpson  thought 
that  a  sketch  of  the  Emperor's  travelling  carriage 
would  be  highly  acceptable  to  the  readers  of  the  Illus- 
trated Lo7idon  News;  and  he  forthwith  jotted  down  his 
pictorial  impressions  of  the  vehicle.     He  was  pounced 


THE   WAR   OF    1 8/0  165 


upon  by  the  gendarmerie,  and  haled,  not  before  the 
Provost- Marshal,  but  the  terrible  Commandant  de 
Plate  himself,  and  a  most  ferocious  personage  he 
proved  to  be.  His  name  has  escaped  me  ;  but  it  was 
that  of  one  of  the  most  prominent  and  sanguinary  of 
the  Terrorists  in  the  first  French  Revolution.  I  think 
that  his  potential  ancestor  figures  in  the  "  Poetry  of 
the  Anti-Jacobin." 

The  Commandant  bullied  us  all  round,  and  seemed 
to  be  particularly  wrathful  with  me,  apostrophising 
me  as  "  Vhomme  aiL  viiiscau  rouge.''  "  Let  him  know," 
he  thundered  forth,  "  and  know  all  of  you,  if  I  hear 
anything  more  about  so-called  artists  sketching, jc  /crai 
Icur  affaire  in  the  course  of  two  hours.  Carriages  for- 
sooth ! — it  may  be  a  carriage  to-day  ;  but  it  will  be 
sketching  the  fortifications  to-morrow."  How  long  he 
would  have  stormed  at  Mr.  Simpson  and  ourselves, 
and  what  he  w^ould  have  done  with  the  luckless  special 
artist  is  uncertain  ;  but  one  of  our  party,  ere  the  pro- 
ceedings commenced,  had  cautiously  written  a  note  to 
the  Emperor's  private  secretary,  and  M.  Pietri  lost  no 
time  in  sending  a  message  to  the  incensed  Command- 
ant, telling  him  that  he  knew  the  artist  of  the  Illustrated 
Neivs  very  well.  So  we  were  hustled  out  of  the  Com- 
mandatorial  presence. 

I  was  destined  to  meet  the  fiery -tempered  gentleman 
once  again.  I  was  at  Cologne,  at  the  Hotel  du  Nord, 
and  on  my  way  to  Berlin.  The  war  was  over,  and  at 
the  table  d'hote  of  the  hotel  I  met  the  ex-Commandant 
de  Place,  a  prisoner  on  parole.  I  called  for  a  pint  of 
champagne,  filled  a  glass,  and  sent  the  remainder  to 
the  once  terrible  swashbuckler,  telling  him  that  I 
should  like  to  drink  his  health.  I  fancied  that  he 
recognised  my  incarmined  proboscis,  since  he  grinned 
a  most  horrible  grin,  preceded  by  a  darksome  scowl. 
Jules  Mumm,  however,  is  a  vintage  not  to  be  despised 


l66  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


under  most  circumstances;  and  the  gentleman  with 
the  Terrorist  name  gulped  down  his  spuming  chalice, 
and  made  me  a  would-be  gracious  bow,  when  I  pledged 
him  and  said,  "  Honneur  an  courage  malJiciireuxy  "  Ein 
verriicktcr  Engldnder  "  (a  mad  Englishman),  quietly  ob- 
served a  German  civilian  with  blue  spectacles,  two  or 
three  removes  off.  *■ 

We  were  not  troubled  by  the  gendarmerie  after  the 
Simpson  incident.  The  authorities  were  kind  enough 
to  send  to  us  as  a  guide,   philosopher,  and  friend,  a 

certain  Count  De  la ,  who,  before  we   had  been 

acquainted  with  him  twenty-four  hours,  we  knew  per- 
fectly well  to  be  a  French  spy.  I  do  not  think  that  he 
got  much  out  of  us;  but  he  was  very  agreeable,  and 
full  of  anecdote  about  the  Court  of  the  Tuileries.  The 
main  business  of  this  politic  gentleman  was  to  get  the 
English  newspaper  correspondents  out  of  Metz,  and 
to  send  them  back  to  Paris  ;  and  in  this,  ere  long,  he 
succeeded.  On  the  4th  of  August  the  battle  of  Worth 
was  fought ;  and  after  the  desperate  and  long-con- 
tinued engagement,  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia  de- 
feated Marshal  MacMahon,  and  almost  completely 
crushed  the  French  army  of  the  Rhine.  On  the  same 
day  the  battle  of  Forbach  took  place  ;  Saarbriick  was 
recaptured,  and  Forbach  taken  by  the  Prussians.  Metz 
was  utterly  demoralised  ;  and  the  narrow  streets  of  the 
city  were  crowded  by  bourgeois  and  farmers,  who  had 
flocked  in  from  the  neighbouring  country,  bringing,  in 
many  cases,  their  cattle  and  their  goods  and  chattels 
with  them.  It  was  a  scare,  a  panic,  a  universal  spasm 
of  terror.  The  Germans  were  in  France,  and  the  Em- 
peror Napoleon  had  left  Metz  for  the  front.  Nothing 
remained  for  us  but  to  fall  back  on  Paris,  which  we 

most  unwillingly  did,  the    friendly   Count  De  la 

telling  us  that  we  should  be  sure  to  find  a  great  many 
things  of  interest  well  worth  chronicling  in  the  French 


THE   WAR   OF    1870  167 

capital.  The  affable  Count  was  telling,  unconscious!}' 
— and  for  once  in  a  way — the  truth.  The  railway  for 
many  miles  was  held  by  the  military  authorities,  as 
fresh  contingents  of  troops  were  being  continually 
pushed  into  Metz,  in  case  of  the  virgin  fortress  being 
besieged  by  the  Germans ;  and  already  there  was  a 
talk  of  Marshal  Bazaine  being  appointed  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  already  immense  garrison.  So  we  set  off 
in  an  open  carriage  and  pair,  for  which  we  paid  a  most 
extortionate  price ;  but  eventually  finding  the  railway 
open,  got,  under  circumstances  of  much  discomfort,  to 
Paris, 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

EXIT   THE    SECOND   EMPIRE 

« 

I  SHALL  never  forget  the  remaining  weeks  of  that 
month  of  August.  Lord  Lyons  was  British  Ambassa- 
dor, and  showed  me  his  usual  kind  hospitality  ;  but 
even  the  ordinarily  tranquil  hotel  in  the  Rue  du  Fau- 
bourg St.  Honore  was,  as  the  month  wore  on,  the 
scene  of  ever  -  increasing  anxiety  and  perturbation. 
Queen's  messengers  were  continually  coming  and 
going ;  and  the  Chancery  was  thronged  all  day  by 
English  residents  in  Paris  who  wished  to  leave  their 
plate  and  jewels  in  the  vaults  of  the  Embassy.  There 
was  a  universal  feeling  that  the  city  would  be  besieged, 
Strasburg  was  being  bombarded  by  the  Germans  ;  and 
on  the  2nd  September  came  the  final  collapse  of  Sedan, 
so  graphically  described  in  the  Daily  Nczvs  by  my  ad- 
mirable colleague,  Archibald  Forbes. 

But  I  must  not  forestall  matters.  Throughout  Au- 
gust, supplies  of  grain  and  live  stock  were  pouring 
into  Paris,  and  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  thousands  of 
cattle  and  sheep  were  pastured.  1  do  not  know  any- 
thing about  the  bovine  or  ovine  race  myself ;  but  a 
member  of  the  Smithfield  Club  would  have  watched 
with  the  deepest  interest  this  gathering  of  live  stock, 
in  which  every  breed  in  France  was  represented.  The 
spy  mania,  of  which  I  had  had  a  foretaste  at  Metz,  was 
raging  with  much  greater  fury  in  Paris.  My  friend 
Parkinson,  whom  I  found  at  the  Grand  Hotel,  told  me 
that  for  four  long  hours  he  had  been  tracked  by  an 
elderly  individual,  who,  he  felt  assured,  was  ?iinoiichard 
from  the  Prefecture  of  Police.     The  man  persistently 


EXIT  THE   SECOND   EMPIRE  169 


"  shadowed  "  him,  as  the  Americans  would  say ;  but 
fortunately  for  Mr.  Parkinson,  the  detective,  who  was 
elderly,  had  gouty  feet,  and  my  friend  at  last  eluded 
his  attentions  by  ascending  the  tower  of  Notre  Dame. 
The  podagrous  detective  did  not  care  to  follow  him,  and 
gave  up  the  pursuit  in  disgust ;  at  least  my  friend  did  not 
find  him  waiting  for  him  when,  half  an  hour  afterwards, 
he  emerged  from  the  west  door  of  the  cathedral. 

There  was  something  ludicrous  in  this  widespread 
panic  ;  all  the  Germans  in  Paris  suddenly  discovered 
that  they  were  not  natives  of  the  Fatherland,  but 
that  they  were  either  Austrians  or  Alsatians  ;  and  to 
be  an  Alsatian  was  to  become  for  the  time  a  popular 
idol ;  for  every  day  the  emblematical  statue  of  Stras- 
burg  on  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  was  heaped  with 
wreaths  of  flowers.  There  was  a  German  tailor  in 
the  Rue  de  Rivoli  to  whom  I  owed,  in  1867,  a  small 
account.  When  I  returned  to  Paris  in  July  he  began 
to  dun  me,  and  I  promptly  settled  his  demand.  In  the 
second  week  in  August  this  worthy  Schneider  called 
on  me  at  the  Grand  Hotel.  I  did  not  receive  him 
very  effusively,  and  contented  myself  by  remarking 
that  I  supposed  he  did  not  want  to  have  his  bill  paid 
over  again.  It  was  not  that,  he  replied  in  faltering 
accents,  addressing  me  as  High,  well-born  Herr. 
Would  that  he  had  never  asked  me  for  a  son ;  I  was 
welcome  to  any  number  of  suits  of  clothes  on  terms 
of  indefinitely  protracted  credit.  But  would  I,  as  a 
well-known  English  Schriftsteller,  write  him  a  testi- 
monial stating  that  I  had  known  him  well  for  more 
than  three  years,  and  that  I  could  vouch  for  his  thor- 
ough respectability  and  political  harmlessness?  I 
wrote  him  the  testimonial  for  what  it  was  worth,  and 
he  went  away  rejoicing.  Whether  it  did  him  any 
good  or  not  I  know  not. 

The  acuteness   of   the    Prussian  spy-fever   did    not 


I/O  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 


abate  one  jot.  The  papers  were  full  of  the  most  ridic- 
ulous stories  detailing  the  discovery,  and  in  many 
cases  the  arrest,  of  alleged  secret  agents  of  Bismarck, 
One  gobemoitchc  wrote  to  the  Presse  to  say  that  while 
standing  at  a  bureau  de  correspondance,  he  had  seen 
enter  an  omnibus  an  individual  dressed  in  the  garb  of 
a  Sister  of  Charity,  but  as  the  individual  raised  her 
robe  to  mount  the  step,  there  was  plainly  discernible 
beneath,  the  extremities  of  tightly -strapped  blue 
trousers  with  gold  braid,  and  spurs.  Obviously,  ac- 
cording to  the  badaud,  the  seeming  Sister  of  Charity 
was  a  Prussian  spy  in  disguise ;  although  why  a  spy 
should  wear  trousers  with  gold  lace  down  the  seams, 
and  spurs,  puzzles  my  comprehension.  Another  story, 
as  preposterous,  was  to  the  effect  that  the  Hanoverian 
Legion  who  had  entered  the  service  of  France,  not 
because  they  were  disloyal  Germans,  but  because  they 
preferred  their  own  king  to  His  Prussian  Majesty, 
were,  to  a  Dian,  composed  of  Prussian  spies. 

Concurrently,  however,  with  these  myths,  came  a 
number  of  incidents  more  momentous ;  they  were 
tragic.  A  valiant  Marshal  of  France,  full  of  years  and 
glory,  was  brutally  maltreated  by  the  mob  on  the  es- 
planade at  Vincennes,  on  the  grounds  that  he  was  an 
cspion  priissien  ;  and  a  more  than  half-crazy  German, 
who  had  formerly  been  a  lieutenant  in  the  Prussian 
army,  and  who  had  babbled  some  silly  political  rub- 
bish at  a  brasserie,  was  positively  tried  by  a  court-mar- 
tial, and  shot  as  a  spy  in  one  of  the  courtyards  of  the 
Ecole  Militaire.  Long  ago,  Voltaire  had  said  that  the 
character  of  his  countrymen  was  a  combination  of 
the  traits  of  the  tiger  and  the  monkey  ;  only  he  omit- 
ted to  say  that,  on  occasion,  one  of  these  qualities  be- 
came, for  a  time,  altogether  dormant.  At  the  end  of 
August,  1870,  there  was  very  little  of  the  monkey  vis- 
ible in  Paris  :  the  tiger  was  everywhere. 


EXIT  THE   SECOND   EMPIRE  171 

Of  this  verity,  I  became  personally  and  very  un- 
pleasantly aware.  On  the  night  of  Saturday,  the  3d 
of  September,  I  was  at  the  Cafe  du  Helder,  in  the  sa- 
loon on  the  first  floor,  in  company  with  an  artist  who 
had  just  returned,  not  from  the  seat  of  war,  but  from 
South  America,  and  who  was  showing  me  some 
sketches  which  he  had  made  in  Chili  and  Peru.  He 
had  been  absent  from  Europe  for  more  than  a  year ; 
and  naturally  our  conversation  turned  on  the  stirring 
events  of  the  last  two  months :  and  the  words  Metz, 
Strasburg,  Nancy,  Verdun,  Mans,  Latour,  Gravelotte 
and  Sedan,  frequently  turned  up,  together  with  the 
names  of  Napoleon,  King  William,  Bismarck,  and 
MacMahon.  It  was  about  midnight ;  I  bade  my 
friend  farewell,  and  was  preparing  to  descend  the 
rather  steep  staircase  of  the  Cafe  du  Helder,  and, 
crossing  the  boulevard,  return  to  the  Grand  Hotel, 
when  I  was  surrounded  by  a  mob  of  excited  French- 
men, who  loudly  denounced  me  as  a  Prussian  spy. 
With  their  arms  they  barred  the  door  of  egress  ;  a 
Commissary  of  Police  was  sent  for;  and  I  was  dragged 
by  police  agents  to  the  Central  Station,  which  was 
somewhere  about  the  Boulevard  Montmartre.  INIy 
captors  flung  me  into  a  large  cell,  or  rather  lock-up 
room,  saying  to  the  inmates  of  the  place  "  Here  is  a 
Prussian  spy  for  you."  There  may  have  been  five-and- 
twenty  ruffians  in  this  abominable  den — swindlers, 
thieves,  souteneurs,  rodeurs  dc  barriere,  pickpockets  and 
mendicants.  They  set  upon  me,  and  did  their  best  to 
kill  me.  I  was  knelt  upon,  buffeted,  scratched,  and 
my  hair  was  torn  out  by  handfuls.  One  villain  in  a 
white  blouse,  possibly  one  of  the  patriots  who  had 
howled  "  A  Berlin  !  "  on  the  boulevards  in  July,  tried 
to  bite  me  ;  while  another  devoted  his  energies  to  kick- 
ing my  ankles  with  his  wooden  sabots.  The  hurts  he 
gave  me  have  not  thoroughly  healed,  even  to  this  day. 


1/2  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

I  found  one  protector,  however,  in  the  shape  of  a 
huge  fellow  from  the  abattoir — a  slaughter-man,  who 
was  only  locked  up  for  being  drunk  and  disorderly, 
and  who,  fortunately  for  me,  having  slept  off  his  de- 
bauch, woke  and  shielded  me  with  his  powerful  body, 
telling  my  assailants  that  they  were  a  "  tas  de  gucux  ct 
de  grcdiiisr  About  four  in  the  morning  I  was  taken  to 
the  Central  Police  Station,  somewhere  near  the 
Bourse ;  and  the  scrgents  de  ville  who  had  me  in  cus- 
tody said  that  they  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  the 
crime  of  which  I  had  been  accused.  The  Central  Sta- 
tion was  full  of  police  officers :  each  couple  having  in 
charge  their  particular  prisoner  or  prisoners  ;  and  here 
I  remained,  without  bite  or  sup,  until  eight  in  the 
morning,  when  I  was  taken  to  the  office  of  the  Com- 
missary of  Police  in  whose  district  the  Cafe  du  Helder 
was  situated.  As  I  entered  this  magistrate's  office 
there  were  leaving  it  a  couple  of  Frenchmen,  one  of 
whom,  from  the  thickness  and  blackness  of  his  beard, 
I  thought  that  I  recognised  as  one  of  the  excited 
crowd  at  the  cafd.  He  looked  at  me  narrowly  ;  and  I 
looked  at  him,  and  without  exchanging  a  word,  he  and 
his  friend  departed.  Doleful  as  were  the  straits  in 
which  I  found  myself,  I  could  not  help  recalling  that 
strangest  of  jingles  in  the  "  Devil's  Walk  " — 

"  He  passed  through  Tottenham  Court  Road, 
Either  by  chance  or  by  whim  ; 
And  there  he  saw  Brothers  the  prophet ; 
And  Brothers  the  prophet  saw  him." 

I  was  kept  waiting  exactly  one  hour;  and  at  the  ex- 
piration of  that  time  the  Commissary  emerged  from 
his  private  room,  and  informed  me  that  I  was  accused 
of  having  held,  the  previous  evening,  certain  propos  in- 
jiirieiix  a  la  France ;  and  that  I  was,  moreover,  sus- 
pected of  being  a  Prussian  spy.     I  asked  who  were 


EXIT  THE   SECOND    EMPIRE  173 

my  accusers  ;  he  declined  to  furnish  me  with  any  in- 
formation on  the  point ;  but  said  that  out  of  regard 
for  my  apparent  respectability  —  I  was  wearing,  as  I 
have  done  for  many  years  past,  a  white  waistcoat, 
which  had  got  sadly  smirched  in  the  affray  in  the  den 
of  human  wild  beasts,  on  the  Boulevard  Montmartre 
— he  proposed  to  send  me  to  the  Depot  of  the  Pre- 
fecture of  Police,  not  in  the  ordinary  cellular  van,  but 
in  a  cab,  if  I  had  the  means  of  paying  for  such  a  con- 
venience. I  put  my  hand  in  my  pocket,  and  found 
that  I  had  a  considerable  sum  in  gold  and  silver  about 
me.  My  watch  and  breast-pin  had,  however  disap- 
peared. How  my  assailants  missed  rifling  my  pockets, 
I  could  not  for  the  life  of  me  understand.  I  was  gfiven 
over  to  a  couple  of  plain-clothes  detectives,  who  were 
very  decent  fellows,  and  who  already  spoke  of  m}'  mis- 
fortune as  "  the  Affair  of  the  Cafe  du  Helder."  They 
said  that  the  two  Frenchmen,  one  of  whom  had  such 
a  very  thick  beard,  whom  I  had  met  on  entering  the 
office,  had  had  a  long  interview  with  the  Commissary ; 
and  it  was  on  their  "  informations  "  that  I  was  charged. 
They  had  also,  I  was  told,  earl}^  in  the  morning,  gone 
to  the  Grand  Hotel,  and  asked  permission  from  the 
manager  to  take  away  my  papers  ;  but  as  they  had  no 
authority  to  do  so,  the  manager — who  was  a  German, 
by  the  way — had  declined  to  gratify  their  wish.  The 
friendly  detectives  bade  me  be  of  good  cheer.  The 
law  was  the  law,  they  pointed  out ;  and  if  I  could 
prove  my  nationality  and  my  professional  status,  the 
J2i£'i^  d'mstriictio7i  before  whom  I  was  brought,  would 
most  assuredly,  after  a  brief  examination,  set  me  free. 
So  we  hailed  an  open  victoria,  one  detective  sitting  by 
my  side,  and  the  other  mounting  the  box,  and  crossing 
the  Seine  drove  to  the  Prefecture  hard  by  the  Palais 
de  Justice. 

Extensive  structural  alterations  were  in  progress  ; 


174       LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

and  much  more  was  visible  in  the  way  of  boardings 
and  scaffold  poles  than  of  the  architectural  features  of 
the  structure  in  which  I  was  to  be  confined.  We 
passed  through  divers  dark  corridors,  and  emerged  at 
last  into  a  spacious  hall  with  a  very  high  roof,  and 
with  spiral  iron  staircases  at  intervals  leading  to  at 
least  three  tiers  of  cells.  Presently,  I  was  ranged 
with  a  number  of  other  real,  or  imputed,  malefactors, 
in  a  long  row,  but  the  inspecting  officer  consulting  a 
memorandum  book,  directed  a  warder  to  bring  out 
"  the  man  in  the  white  waistcoat."  I  was  taken  to  the 
grcffc,  an  office  where  my  designation,  Christian  name 
and  surname,  my  place  of  birth,  my  profession,  my 
age,  and  etat  civil  generally,  were  all  entered  in  a  huge 
book  ;  and  then  the  inspecting  officer,  a  grey-headed 
gentleman  in  plain  clothes,  summoned  me  into  his  pri- 
vate room. 

He  was  courtesy  itself — as  courteous  as  General 
Saint  Sauveur  had  been  at  Metz  :  observing  that  there 
must  be  some  mistake  in  my  case  ;  and  that  after  a  day 
or  two  I  should  probably  be  summoned  before  the 
jitge  cT instruction,  and  the  affair  would  be  cleared  up- 
Had  I  any  political  enemies  in  Paris,  he  asked.  I 
replied  that  I  was  not  aware  of  having  done  anything 
to  acquire  any  enemies  at  all,  either  at  home  or  abroad. 
Oddly  enough,  the  refrain  to  all  his  questions  and 
remarks  was  identical  to  that  with  which  we  had 
been  favoured  by  the  Grand  Pre'vot  at  Metz.  "  There 
was,"  he  said,  ''  nn  fdcJieux  etat  de  choses  ;  et  les  temps 
(ftaient  tres  durs.  I  am,"  he  continued,  "■  myself  only 
here  provisionally  ;  I  am  the  director  of  the  female 
penitentiary  of  Saint  Lazare — a  nice  quiet  place,  where 
discipline  is  admixabl}^  maintained  by  those  good  nuns, 
les  Sceurs  Crises  ;  and  where,  although  there  is  a  break- 
out now  and  again  among  the  younger  prisoners,  one 
may   say  that,  as   a  rule,  you    never  hear  one   word 


EXIT   THE   SECOND   EMPIRE  1 75 

spoken  louder  than  another.  But  the  Director  of  the 
Depot  is  ill,  and  I  have  been  sent  for  temporarily  to 
fill  his  place  ;  and  ma  fe mines  et  mes  enfants  sont  la-bas 
qui pleurcnty  Fancy  a  man  expressing  his  sorrow  at 
being  temporarily  divorced  from  his  home  in  a  peni- 
tentiary !  Then  he  went  on  to  tell  me  that  I  was  to  be 
kept  in  a  cell  an  secret ;  but  that  I  should  find  solitary 
confinement  more  a  comfort  than  a  hardship  ;  inas- 
much as  I  should  not  be  in  the  company  of  the  scum 
of  humanity  congregated  in  the  common  day-room  and 
dormitories;  and  then,  he  added,  "you  can  smoke 
and  have  books  to  read,  and  you  will  be  put  a  la  pis- 
tole " — which  last  meant  that  I  should  be  able  to  order 
my  meals  from  a  neighbouring  restaurant,  instead  of 
partaking  of  the  usual  and  revolting  prison  fare. 

All  this  while  I  was  mechanically  holding  in  my 
hand  a  large  loaf  of  bread,  which  had  been  given  me 
on  entering  the  Central  Hall.  The  Director  was  so 
polite  as  to  conduct  me  himself  to  my  cell,  which  was 
on  the  first  floor.  It  was  now  half-past  ten.  He  gave 
me  over  to  the  gaoler;  a  tall,  meagre  man,  of  about 
fifty-five,  with  a  grizzled  moustache,  the  militar}^  medal 
on  his  breast,  and  honesty  written  in  every  line  of  his 
gnarled  visage.  I  have  met  with  so  many  rogues  in 
my  time,  that  I  fancy  that  I  do  not  need  the  aid  of 
Diogenes's  lantern  to  discover  an  honest  man.  Pres- 
ently a  prisoner  entered,  dragging  a  mattress  and 
some  bed  furniture  with  him  ;  for  as  I  was  a  la  pistole, 
I  was  to  be  privileged,  for  a  daily  payment,  to  sleep 
softer  than  the  ordinary  dc'terms.  When  the  prisoner 
had  made  the  bed,  the  gaoler,  setting  his  back 
against  the  door,  asked  me  in  a  gruff,  but  not  unkind 
voice,  whether  I  could  not  eat  my  bread.  I  replied 
that  I  had  no  appetite.  "  No  wonder,"  said  he,  "  you 
have  been  terribly  mauled.  One  lapel  of  your  coat 
has    been    torn    off,    and     your    white    waistcoat    is 


1/6  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


smeared  with  blood.  We  don't  often  have  people 
with  white  waistcoats  here." 

He  was  silent  for  half -a- minute,  and  then  said, 
"  Have  you  got  any  cigars?"  I  put  my  hand  in  my 
side  pocket;  my  cigar-case  had  disappeared.  "  Like  a 
pipe?"  he  asked.  "I  should  like  one,"  I  replied, 
"  dearly,"  He  produced  an  old,  blackened,  short, 
wooden  pipe,  and,  screwed  up  in  paper,  some  of  the 
strongest  caporal  tobacco — it  is  stronger  than  our  shag 
— that  I  ever  tasted.  "  Smoke,"  he  said,  "  it  will  do 
you  good."  I  sat  down  on  the  bed  ;  and  after  a  few 
whiffs,  he  continued,  still  gruffly,  "  Can  I  do  anything 
for  you  ?  "  Yes,  thank  Heaven  !  he  could.  The  benef- 
icent fairy.  Nicotine,  had  suggested  to  me  a  happy 
thought.  I  had  my  card-case  about  me.  T\\q.  portc- 
cJiefs  gave  me  a  pencil  ;  and  I  hastily  scribbled  on  the 
back  of  a  visiting  card  these  few  words  in  French. 
"  Lord  Lyons,  British  Embassy.  In  prison.  Prefec- 
ture of  Police,  Prussian  spy.  Please  get  me  out."  I 
handed  the  card,  together  with  a  gold  louis,  to  the 
gaoler,  saying,  "  Will  you  promise  me  to  have  this 
card  conveyed  to  the  British  Embass}'?  The  napo- 
leon is  for  the  messenger."  He  looked  at  me  very 
fixedly  ;  took  the  card  and  replied,  "  Tcnes,  inon  bour- 
geois, I  am  an  old  soldier  :  after  eight  campaigns  one 
does  not  go  ?ihou\.  faisajit  des  cochonncrics.  Your  card 
shall  be  at  the  Embass}'  in  twenty  minutes  ;  and  I 
won't  take  "^  Hard  for  it;"  whereupon  he  threw  the 
piece  of  gold  on  the  bed  ;  left  the  cell ;  and  locked  me 
up,  very  securely  indeed. 

It  was  now  eleven.  Precisely  at  a  quarter  to  twelve, 
the  "  Judas  "  trap,  or  inspection-hole,  in  the  door  of 
the  cell  was  opened  :  and  through  the  aperture  I  dis- 
cerned the  rugged  face  of  the  veteran  of  eight  cam- 
paigns. "  There  is  an  English  captain,"  he  said,  "  who 
has  come  to  see  you."     He  unlocked  the  door ;  led  me 


EXIT  THE   SECOND   EMPIRE  1 77 

down  one  of  the  spiral  staircases,  and  guided  me,  not 
towards  the  greffe,  but  through  seemingly  endless  cor- 
ridors and  bureaux,  and  up  and  down  staircases,  to  the 
private  cabinet  of  the  Prefect  of  Police  himself ;  and 
with  him  was  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  Embassy, 
Mr.  De  Saumarez.  The  Prefect  was  profuse  in  his 
apologies.  A  lamentable  mistake  had  been  made, 
he  said  ;  and  he  could  not  help  thinking  that  m}-  arrest 
had  been  due  to  denunciations  prompted  by  private 
malice.  Then  shaking  me  cordially  by  the  hand,  and 
telling  me  that  I  was  free  to  depart,  he  handed  me 
over  to  the  secretary  and  bowed  us  out. 

In  the  next  room,  however,  the  long  pent-up  sensa- 
tions of  the  horrors  which  I  had  undergone,  found 
vent.  Although  I  never  dreaded  danger,  and  have 
been  in  peril  of  death  over  and  over  again,  I  am  as 
nervous  as  a  cat ;  and  in  one  of  the  waiting-rooms  we 
were  passing  through  I  had  a  violent  fit  of  hysterics. 
I  had  another,  even  more  violent,  in  the  carriage  into 
which  we  entered  to  cross  the  Seine,  so  Mr.  De  Sau- 
marez very  sensibly  took  me  into  a  chemist's  shop, 
where  the  pJiarmacicn  administered  to  me  some  re- 
storative, of  which  1  suspect  the  ingredients  were  sal 
volatile,  opium,  and  gentian,  for  the  draught  was  as 
bitter  as  gall ;  but  I  could  taste  the  ammonia,  and  smell 
the  vapid  odour  of  laudanum.  At  all  events  the 
"  pick-me-up  "  set  me  on  my  legs  again.  jNIr.  De  Sau- 
marez told  me  that  my  card  had  arrived  at  the  Em- 
bassy while  Lord  Lyons  was  at  church ;  but  as  the 
case  seemed  urgent,  his  private  secretary,  Mr.  Shef- 
field, had  sent  the  billet  to  His  Excellency,  who  at  once 
wrote  instructions  for  one  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  Em- 
bassy to  proceed  to  the  Prefecture  of  Police,  and  ex- 
plain who  I  was,  and  that  I  had  been  personally  knov/n 
for  many  years  to  the  British  Ambassador. 

When  I  reached  the  Grand  Hotel  I  broke  down 
II. — 12 


178  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 


again,  not  into  hysterics  but  with  sheer  bodily  pain  ; 
for  I  was  bruised  from  head  to  foot,  and  in  more  than 
one  place,  especially  about  my  arms,  my  skin  was  lace- 
rated. At  once  my  friends  sent  for  the  physician  to 
the  Embassy,  the  Hon.  Allen  Herbert,  who  tended  my 
physical  hurts,  and  prescribed  complete  rest  in  bed  for 
at  least  three  days.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  w^as  a  week 
in  bed  ;  but  I  had  plenty  of  friends  who  came  up  to 
condole  with  me  and  club  their  dinners  with  me. 

But  please  to  mark  this.  It  was  about  noon  when  I 
left  the  cabinet  of  the  Prefecture  of  PoUce — noon  on 
Sunday,  the  Fourth  of  September.  At  one  o'clock  the 
Revolution  had  broken  out.  Before  nightfall  the 
Second  Empire  was  dead.  At  tw^o  o'clock  the  mob 
raided  the  Prefecture  of  Police;  but  the  Prefect  es- 
caped their  fury  by  flying  through  the  garden,  in  the 
wall  of  which  there  was  a  door.  Had  the  exasperated 
populace,  inflamed  equally  with  loathing  for  Napoleon 
III.  and  hatred  for  the  Prussians,  found  me  in  my  cell, 
and  registered  at  the  greffe  as  being  incarcerated  as  a 
person  suspected  of  being  a  spy,  they  would  most  as- 
suredly have  butchered  me. 

One  droll  incident  marked  the  close  of  a  drama 
which  to  me,  since  midnight  on  the  3d,  had  scarcely 
been  of  a  festive  nature.  From  my  bed,  where  the 
next  morning  I  was  lying,  tossing  and  tumbling  about 
in  agony,  there  was  visible  a  portion  of  the  facade 
of  the  Grand  Opera,  which  in  1870  bore  the  inscrip- 
tion in  large  gilt  letters  "  Academic  Imperiale  de 
Musique ; "  and  I  could  see,  perched  very  high,  a 
workman,  who  was  busily  employed  in  scraping  and 
digging  out  the  word  "  Imperiale,"  and  substituting 
for  it  "  Nationale."  The  change  had  been  decreed  by 
that  Provisional  Government,  the  members  of  w^hich 
were  somewhat  unhandsomely  defined  by  Prince  Bis- 
marck as  the  "  gentlemen  of  the  pavement." 


EXIT  THE   SECOND   EMPIRE  1 79 

The  German  hosts  were  closing  up,  and  every  day 
the  Parisians  expected  to  hear  of  the  Prussian  out- 
posts being  visible  at  the  suburbs.  x\ll  kinds  of  wild 
tales  were  in  circulation  touching  that  notable  trooper, 
the  Prussian  Uhlan.  He  was  described  as  riding 
about  quite  alone,  with  his  long  lance,  to  the  spear- 
end  of  which  was  attached  a  white  pennant  resem- 
bling, so  the  irritated  Frenchman  called  it,  tin  vwiicJioir 
sale.  He  would  ride  boldly  into  a  village ;  halt  at  the 
door  of  the  principal  inn,  and  demand  food,  drink,  and 
tobacco.  And  if  he  noticed  any  movement  on  the 
part  of  the  local  gendarme,  the  garde-champetrc,  or  the 
pompiers,  to  capture  and  hold  him  as  a  prisoner  of  war, 
he  would  coolly  observe  that  seven  hundred  Uhlans 
would  enter  the  village  at  noon  next  day,  and  that  he 
had  merely  come  prospecting  for  quarters  for  them. 
The  rustic  folk  took  him  at  his  word  ;  and  this  boldest 
of  bold  dragoons  would  ride  away  with  German 
phlegm  and  self-possession. 


CHAPTER    XLVII 

THROUGH   THE   WALL   OF   ROME 

Besides  Felix  Whitehurst  and  myself,  we  had  an  ex 
tra  special  correspondent  in  Paris,  the  Hon.  Francis 
Lawley  ;  and,  as  it  was  thought  inexpedient  on  our 
part  that  three  representatives  of  the  Daily  Telegraph 
should  be  locked  up  in  Paris  during  the  siege,  it  was 
agreed  that  I  should  go  out  of  the  city  and  proceed 
to  Geneva,  which  was  on  neutral  territory,  and  Avire 
for  further  instructions  to  Peterborough  Court.  I  was 
nearly  at  the  end  of  my  tether  in  way  of  money,  but 
I  had  just  sufficient  to  pay  my  bill  at  the  Grand 
Hotel,  and  my  railway  fare  to  Geneva  via  Lyons. 
When,  however,  I  arrived  at  the  terminus  to  take  the 
night  express  the  railway  authorities  refused  to  book 
any  heavy  luggage,  and,  much  to  my  disgust,  I  was 
constrained  to  send  the  bulk  of  my  impedimenta  back 
to  the  Grand  Hotel.  What  became  of  it  I  never 
knew  ;  for  just  as  one  reads  in  the  epigram  in  the 
Greek  anthology  that  Lycon  set  eyes  on  Nemestrinus's 
cushion,  but  that  Nemestrinus  never  set  eyes  upon  his 
cushion  again,  so  were  mine  destined  never  again  to 
behold  my  trunks  and  portmanteaus,  and  I  departed  ; 
"travelling  light,"  as  the  Americans  say,  with  only  a 
small  handbag  of  needments. 

I  broke  the  journey  at  Lyons :  a  city  which  had 
been  magnificently  improved  in  an  architectural  sense 
through  the  initiative  of  the  much  calumniated  Na- 
poleon in.  When  I  ^rst  knew  the  great  city  of  the 
silk   manufacture  it  was  almost  as  dirty  and  as  un- 


THROUGH  THE  WALL  OF  ROME         l8l 

sanitated  as  Marseilles,  and  there  was  scarcely  a  de- 
cent inn  in  the  place ;  but  I  found  the  Lyons  of  Sep- 
tember, 1870,  adorned  with  streets  as  stately  as  the 
Avenue  de  I'Opera,  and  possessing  hotels  as  sumptu- 
ous as  the  Grand,  or  the  Louvre,  in  Paris  ;  but  all 
that  the  fallen  Emperor  had  done  for  the  Lyonese 
was  forgotten.  The  Red  Flag  was  waving  over  the 
city  ;  the  abhorrent  tocsin  was  jangling  ;  and  in  the 
public  squares,  platforms  covered  with  scarlet  baize 
were  erected,  from  which  Republican  orators,  with 
stentorian  lungs,  inveighed  against  the  iniquities  of 
the  Second  Empire,  and  implored  all  good  citizens 
to  walk  up  and  volunteer  for  the  National  Defence- 
It  only  needed  a  man  in  a  fancy  dress  and  a  Roman 
helmet,  beating  at  intervals  a  big  drum,  to  make  the 
spectacle  twin  brother  to  the  show  of  a  travelling  den- 
tist. More  than  all  this.  Garibaldi  was  expected  to 
arrive  to  take  the  command  of  a  Legion  specially  en- 
rolled to  act  against  the  Germans.  Que  diable  allait-il 
faire  dans  cctte  galcrc  ?  Lyons,  moreover,  was  in- 
fested by  hordes  of  volunteer  riflemen,  who  were 
called,  in  the  slang  of  the  day,  franc s-tireiirs.  The 
principal  duties  which  they  performed  did  not,  so  far 
as  my  experience  went,  go  beyond  loafing  in  the  cafh 
and  brasseries,  or  smoking  and  drinking  at  the  little 
tables  outside. 

Re-embarking  in  a  convenient  train,  I  arrived  at 
Geneva  with  exactly  six  francs  seventy-five  centimes 
in  my  pocket.  I  drove  at  once  to  the  principal  hotel, 
an  excellent  one  ;  and  having,  fortunately,  my  pro- 
fessional card  with  me,  in  which  I  was  described  as 
Correspondant  Special  du  Daily  Telegraph,  I  went  to  the 
landlord  and  told  him  plainly  the  state  of  the  case,  and 
that,  considering  the  disturbed  state  of  the  postal  ser- 
vice in  France,  it  would  probably  be  a  week  or  more 
before  I  could  receive  remittances  from  England.    The 


1 82  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

landlord  scratched  his  head,  and  looked  puzzled. 
"  But  the  luggage  ?  "  he  said.  "  Monsieur  has  no  bag- 
agesT  I  explained  that  my  luggage  had  been  laid 
under  an  embargo  at  the  Paris  terminus.  The  land- 
lord cogitated  for  a  while ;  and  then  went  to  consult 
his  wife.  He  speedily  returned ;  and  said  that  of 
course  I  could  remain  as  a  guest  at  his  hotel  until  re- 
mittances arrived,  but  would  I  be  so  very  good  as  to 
oblige  him  by  speaking  a  little  English  to  his  wife. 
So  he  introduced  me  to  the  landlady,  a  plump,  buxom 
personage,  who,  after  the  exchange  of  a  few  phrases, 
expressed  her  belief  that  I  was  tout  cc  guil  y  avait  de 
plus  anglais.  Her  own  English,  by  the  way,  was 
rather  feeble. 

I  did  not  spend  an  altogether  agreeable  ten  daj-s 
at  Geneva.  The  hotel  table  dliote  was  a  very  good  one, 
and  the  morning  cafe  au  lait  delicious ;  the  honey  was 
most  delectable.  I  drank  nothing  but  vin  ordinaire, 
which  was  dear,  and  not  nice.  Vevay  cigars  are  ex- 
tremely cheap,  but  I  very  soon  came  to  the  end  of  my 
few  francs  in  purchasing  these  inexpensive  "  weeds." 
Finally  the  climax  of  my  catastrophe  was  reached — as 
the  Western  farmer  remarked  when  the  caterpillars 
succeeded  the  Colorado  beetles  and  the  Hessian  flies 
— by  a  cruel  attack  of  toothache.  The  neighbourhood 
of  a  snow-capped  mountain  always  gives  me  tooth- 
ache ;  and  I  suppose  Mont  Blanc  had  something  to  do 
with  my  mal de  dents.  I  wanted  some  creosote  badly  ; 
but  I  had  not  a  coin  available  for  the  purchase  of  any 
medicament  whatsoever.  However,  I  screwed  my 
courage  to  the  sticking-place  ;  and,  entering  a  drug- 
gist's shop  described  as  a  Pharmacie  Anglaise,  I  can- 
didly told  a  decidedly  British  individual  behind  the 
counter  how  I  was  situated,  and  what  I  wanted.  He 
simply  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  burst  into  a 
fit  of   genial   laughter.     "  Why,  bless    my   heart,   Mr. 


THROUGH  THE  WALL  OF  ROME         1 83 

Sala  ;  who  would  think  of  your  being  hard  up  ?  Don't 
you  remember  me  ?  Why,  when  you  were  last  in 
Rome  I  was  keeping  a  chemist's  shop  in  the  Corso. 
Here,"  he  continued,  pulling  open  his  till,  "  help  your- 
self to  what  you  like,  and  welcome.  I'll  make  you  up 
something  much  better  than  creosote  for  your  tooth- 
ache." Without  any  hesitation  I  availed  m)'self  of  the 
chemist's  friendly  offer,  and  borrowed  five  louis  from 
him  ;  and  he  gave  me  something  which  in  a  short  time 
alleviated  my  dental  agony. 

Next  morning  a  letter  of  credit  arrived  from  Peter- 
borough Court,  Fleet  Street ;  and  a  day  afterwards 
came  a  telegram  saying  :  "  Go  to  Rome.  Something 
up."  There  was  something  very  much  "  up  "  indeed 
in  the  Eternal  City.  So  early  as  the  last  week  in 
August,  Rome  had  been  evacuated  by  the  French  gar- 
rison, but  the  Imperial  Government  was  kind  enough 
to  leave  the  Pope  a  buona  mano,  in  the  shape  of  eight 
thousand  rifles  and  a  few  hundred  shells.  On  the  21st, 
the  French  troops  were  also  withdrawn  from  Civita 
Vecchia  ;  and  all  the  defence  that  poor  Pio  Nono  could 
reckon  upon  was  that  afforded  by  the  faithful  Pontifi- 
cal Zouaves,  and  by  his  Swiss  Guards  and  gendar- 
merie. On  the  nth  of  September  the  Pope,  to  whom 
Victor  Emmanuel  had  written  a  conciliatory  letter, 
refused  the  terms  offered  him :  namely,  sovereignty 
over  the  Leonine  City,  and  a  splendid  income.  The 
Leonine  City,  so  called  from  its  having  been  founded 
in  the  ninth  century,  by  Pope  Leo  IV.,  is  popularly 
known  as  the  "  Borgo."  It  comprises  the  Castle  of  St. 
Angelo,  the  Hospital  St.  Spirito,  the  Vatican  Palace, 
Museum  and  Gardens,  and  the  Basilica  of  St.  Peter. 
If  His  Holiness  had  had  a  free  hand  it  is  just  possible 
that  he  might  have  acceded  to  the  not  unreasonable 
convention  proposed  by  the  King  of  Italy ;  but  every- 
body conversant  with  the  affairs  of  modern  Italy  is 


1 84       LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


aware  that  behind  St.  Peter's  Chair  there  is  a  "  Black 
Pope" — the  General  of  the  Jesuits.  Nine-tenths  of 
the  citizens  of  Rome  were  enthusiastically  in  favour  of 
union  to  Italy  ;  ev^en  in  the  Leonine  City  fifteen  thou- 
sand inhabitants  voted  for  union,  but  the  Pope  behind 
St.  Peter's  Chair,  vaguely  paraphrasing  M.  Rouher's 
memorable  "  Jamais,"  said  "  No." 

I    call   the   assumed  utterance   vague,  because   the 
Jesuits  all  astute  and  ruses  as  are  the  chiefs  of  that 
wonderful  organisation,  could  only  have  indulged  in  a 
dimly  speculative  hope  that  something  might  turn  up 
to  lead  the  European  Powers  to  oppose  even  by  force 
the   complete   unification    of    Italy.      There    was   the 
chance  of  the  Republican  rtfginte  being  overturned  in 
France,  and  of  Monarchy  being  restored,  either  in  the 
person  of  the  Prince  Imperial,  the  Comte  de  Paris,  or 
the  Comte  de  Chambord.    There  was  t"he  chance  of  an 
alliance  between  Catholic  Spain,  Portugal,  and  Austria, 
and    even    semi-Protestant  Germany,  to   prevent   the 
consolidation  of  the  Kingdom  of  Italy.     Thus,  found- 
ing their  hopes  merely  on  chance,  the  advisers  of  the 
Pope  said  "  No."     On  the  15th  September  the  Italians 
occupied  Civita  Vecchia  without  resistance ;  and  on 
the  17th  General   Cadorna,  at  the  head  of  the  Italian 
army,  crossed  the  Tiber  at  Casale.     He  at  once  sent 
flags  of  truce  to  General  Kanzler,  the  Commander  of 
the  Papal  Zouaves  ;  but  that  brave,  if  wrong-headed, 
German-Swiss,  refused  to  surrender  the  city.     On  the 
19th  the  Pope    wrote  to    General  Kanzler,  directing 
that  a  merely  formal  defence  should  be  made,  and  that 
bloodshed  should  be  avoided.     But  the  Commander  of 
the  Zouaves  apparently  thought  it  indispensable  that 
a  little  gore  should  be  spilt,  for  the  honour  of  the  Vat- 
ican, and  his  own  temporary  glorification.     It  did  not 
seem  to  strike  him  that  the  odds  were  enormously  and 
hopelessly  against  him ;  and  that  he  had  no  right  to 


THROUGH  THE  WALL  OF  ROME         1 85 

sacrifice  the  lives  of  even  a  few  of  the  brave  fellows 
who,  for  love  of  Mother  Church,  were  resolved  to 
fight  under  the  Pontifical  banners  to  the  death.  On 
the  20th  September,  Cadorna  assaulted  the  city,  and 
made  a  breach  in  the  wall  of  Rome  close  to  the  Porta 
Pia ;  which,  tourists  will  remember,  is  within  a  few 
paces  of  the  garden  of  the  British  Embassy.  The  en- 
counter that  took  place  can  scarcely  be  described  as  a 
battle ;  it  was  a  scrimmage.  The  Italians  lost  about 
twenty -two  killed,  and  a  hundred  and  seventeen 
wounded.  Of  the  Papalini,  there  were  about  fifty-five 
killed  and  wounded — in  short,  the  Italian  troops  were 
in  a  thoroughly  good  temper  at  the  conviction  that 
they  were  bound  to  enter  Rome  triumphantly  ;  and 
abstained  so  far  as  ever  they  were  able  from  harming 
the  devoted  adherents  of  the  Pope.  That  triumphant 
entry  they  did  make ;  and,  with  the  rear  of  the  army, 
)^our  humble  servant  came  through  that  historic  "  Hole 
in  the  Wall  "  by  the  Porta  Pia. 

I  had  pleasant  company  with  me.  First,  there  were 
two  gentlemen  of  semi-clerical  mien  in  charge  of  a 
large  barrow,  drawn  by  a  fine,  strong  Newfoundland 
dog,  which  vehicle  was  heaped  high  with  Bibles  and 
Prayer  Books,  printed  in  the  Italian  language,  and  sent 
out  by  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society.  These 
pious  gospellers  made  the  best  of  their  way  to  the 
Piazza  di  Spagna,  forthwith  hired  a  shop — they  have 
changed  their  quarters  since  then — and  the  next  morn- 
ing the  windows  were  one  mass  of  open  copies  of  the 
Authorised  Version.  The  majority  of  the  Romans 
were  rather  pleased  at  this  display  of  Protestantism, 
which  they  associated  with  Liberalism ;  the  majority 
of  the  women,  however,  averted  their  gaze  from  the, 
to  them,  detestable  display  of  literature,  which  their 
priests  assured  them  was  composed  half  of  downright 
atheism,  and  half  of  witchcraft  and  sorcery.. 


1 86       LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


My  other  pleasant  companion  was  good  old  Mr. 
Thomas  Cook,  the  founder  of  Cook's  Tourist  Agency: 
an  institution  which,  in  my  humble  opinion,  has  done 
within  the  last  thirty  years,  an  immensity  of  moral  and 
social  good.  The  organisation  has  opened  up,  not  only 
to  the  London  middle-class  Cockney  but  to  the  remot- 
est provincial,  countries  and  cities  which,  but  for  the 
"  personally  conducted  "  tour,  they  would  never  have 
dreamt  of  visiting.  The  devout  have  been  able,  by 
means  of  Cook,  to  make  pilgrimages  in  the  Holy 
Land ;  the  humble  student  of  archaeology  has  had 
Italy  and  Egypt  thrown  open  to  him  ;  and  Cook  at 
present  pervades  the  whole  civilised  world.  I  do  not 
know  when  the  agency,  on  very  humble  lines,  was  first 
established ;  but  I  first  became  aware  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Cook  in  1865,  at  Venice,  to  which  he  had  "personally 
conducted  "  a  troop  of  about  fifty  tourists,  male  and 
female.  I  was  taking  my  wife  over  the  Ducal  Palace  ; 
and  in  the  cell,  traditionally  pointed  out  as  the  dun- 
geon of  Marino  Faliero,  I  found,  among  a  number  of 
eager  sightseers,  a  gentleman  whom  I  had  known 
twenty  years  previously  as  the  box  book-keeper  at  the 
Princess's  Theatre. 

"  Rather  surprised,"  he  remarked,  after  mutual 
greetings,  "  to  meet  me  here,  eh  ?  "  "I  should  not  be 
surprised,"  I  replied,  "  to  meet  a  box  book-keeper  any- 
where, or  to  see  him  do  anything."  "  Ah,"  he  re- 
joined, "you  have  got  the  old  prejudices  against  our 
class  ;  you're  thinking  of  W.  R.  Copeland,  the  mana- 
ger of  the  Theatre  Royal,  Liverpool,  who  used  to  say 
that  he  was  the  only  manager  in  England  who  could 
boast  of  having  thoroughly  honest  money-takers,  but 
that  they  all  built  freehold  houses  out  of  salaries  of 
fifteen  shillings  a  week."  My  ex-boxkeeper,  however, 
was  like  Caesar's  wife,  altogether  beyond  suspicion  ; 
still  I  scarcely  think  that  it  would  have  occurred  to 


THROUGH  THE  WALL  OP^  ROME         187 


him  in  his  modest  retirement  at  Walton-on-the-Naze  to 
make  a  tour  in  North  Italy  had  it  not  been  for  the 
friendly  assistance  of  Mr.  Thomas  Cook. 

This  ofentleman  introduced  himself  to  me  on  the 
common  ground  that  we  were  both  public  servants  ; 
and  he  proceeded  pathetically  to  complain  of  the  at- 
tacks then  beinor  made  on  himself  and  his  excursionists 
in  Blackzvood's  Magazine,  by  a  writer  who  assumed  the 
noiii  de  guerre  of  "  Cornelius  O'Dowd."  Among  the 
amiable  things  said  by  this  censor  was  the  expression 
of  an  opinion  that  the  English  tourists  whom  he  saw 
trotting  about  were  escaped  convicts.  "  Cornelius 
O'Dowd  "  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  my  friend  Charles 
Lever,  the  author  of  the  delightful  "  Harry  Lorrequer," 
"Jack  Hinton,  the  Guardsman,"  "  Charles  O'Malley," 
"Tom  Burke,"  and  a  host  of  other  vivacious  novels, 
which,  I  am  afraid,  in  this  frivolous  and  yearning-for- 
sensation  age,  are  not  half  so  frequently  read  as  they 
used  to  be,  and  who,  in  1865,  was  Consul-General  at 
Trieste. 

He  had  sent  me  his  photograph  some  short  time 
before ;  and  his  countenance  in  the  album  carte  bore 
such  a  haggard  and  woe-begone  appearance,  that  1 
was  justified  in  assuming  that  he  was  in  the  worst  of 
health.  Perhaps  that  circumstance  had  soured  his 
temper,  and  incited  him  to  vilify  Mr.  Cook,  who,  I 
believe,  was  so  irritated  by  the  undeserved  strictures, 
that  he  made  a  formal  complaint  to  the  Foreign  Office. 
Poor  Charles  James  Lever  died  in  1872,  at  the  com- 
paratively early  age  of  sixty-three.  I  do  not  know 
whether  he  was  the  originator  of  the  droll  story  of  the 
Italian  hotel-keeper,  whose  heart  leapt  up  when  he 
saw  no  less  than  two  omnibuses  disgorging  passengers 
at  the  door  of  his  establishment;  but  who  was  reduced 
to  a  condition  of  extreme  depression  when  his  head 
waiter  came  mournfullv  to  him  and  exclaimed  that  the 


lS8        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

new  arrivals  were  "  tiitti  CucchiJ"  The  story  first  ap- 
peared in  the  World  newspaper ;  it  is  certainly  be7i 
trovato,  but  I  doubt  its  entire  veracity,  seeing  that 
Continental  hotel-keepers  who  have  made  treaties  with 
Cook's  Agency  always  know  when  contingents  of  ex- 
cursionists may  be  expected. 

To  make  an  end  of  my  experience  of  Cook,  I  may 
say,  that  when  I  was  in  Australia,  one  of  his  agents 
called  on  me  at  Sydney,  to  ask  for  some  information 
with  regard  to  New  Zealand,  to  which  fair  country  he 
proposed  to  organise  excursions  from  India  ;  and  again, 
so  soon  as  I  arrived  in  Calcutta,  Cook's  agent  met  me 
on  the  steamer  in  the  Flugh,  found  an  English-speaking 
baboo,  or  body  servant,  for  me,  and  procured  me  a 
series  of  railway  tickets  for  a  progress  through  the 
Three  Presidencies. 

All  this  I  am  perfectly  aware  is  a  digression,  but  oc- 
casional digressions  are  inevitable  in  a  work  of  this 
nature.  I  have  never  kept  a  continuous  diary  ;  and 
it  is  impossible  to  remember  ever3'thing  in  exact  se- 
quence ;  consequently  when  a  name  of  an  individual 
to  whom  some  public  interest  attaches  occurs  to  me,  I 
tell  my  readers  what  I  know  about  him.  Farewell, 
Mr.  Thomas  Cook,  now  defunct !  If  there  ever  was  a 
public  benefactor  you  were  one.  I  have  never  joined 
a  "  personally-conducted  "  tour ;  but  when  I  travel 
abroad  I  alwa3^s  provide  myself  with  Cook's  railway 
tickets,  which  save  you  a  large  amount  of  trouble  ; 
and,  moreover.  Cook's  money-changing  offices  give 
you,  as  a  rule,  much  better  exchange  than  you  can  ob- 
tain at  the  local  bureau  de  change. 

Exciting,  but  wholly  pacific,  weeks  did  I  pass  in 
Rome,  after  the  entry  of  the  Italian  army.  Some  of 
the  Papal  Zouaves  had  taken  refuge  in  the  nunnery  of 
the  Trinita  di  Monte,  where  they  were  hospitably 
sheltered  in  the  church  by  the  good  Sisters  ;  but  Gen- 


THROUGH  THE  WALL  OF  ROME         1 89 

eral  Cadorna  and  his  men  had  not  the  slightest  ani- 
mosity against  these  brave  men,  who,  although  they 
were  in  a  certain  sense  mercenaries,  had  mostly  fought 
purely  for  conscience  sake.  On  the  22d  September 
the  foreign  Legionaries  were  suffered  to  march  out  of 
Rome,  with  the  honours  of  war :  an  act  of  courtesy 
which  I  am  sorry  to  say  they  did  not  reciprocate,  since 
they  gibed,  jeered,  and  swore  at  the  Italians  in  their 
passage  through  the  streets.  The  Austrian  soldiery, 
I  remember,  behaved  much  better  when  they  evacu- 
ated Verona,  in  1866.  The  populace  did  not  insult  the 
TcdescJd ;  they  seemed  to  have  a  premonition  of  the 
subsequent  saying  of  a  well-known  Italian  statesman, 
that  the  Germans  had  only  got  to  go  away  for  the 
Italians  to  discover  what  good  fellows  they  were,  and 
at  this  day  much  of  the  trade  in  V^enice  is  in  Austrian 
hands.  At  Verona,  as  the  Croats  and  Magyars  and 
the  Aust^ians  marched  by,  the  crowd  contented  them- 
selves with  shouting,  "  Viva  Italia  !  "  whereupon  one 
stalwart  grenadier,  holding  up  a  birdcage  containing  a 
canary,  which  he  was  carrying  away  as  a  souvenir  of 
sunny  Italy,  shouted,  "  Viva  la  bclla  famiglia  !  " — a 
conventional  cry,  meaning,  "  Long  live  everybody," 
to  which  the  many-headed  responded  by  a  shout  of 
"  Viva  il  canarino  !  " — "  Long  live  the  canary  bird." 
So  all  things  went  off  smoothly  and  pleasantly. 

But  what  would  you  have  ?  Circumstances  alter 
temper  as  well  as  cases.  In  1864  I  was  riding  with  a 
Federal  General  and  his  staff  through  the  streets  of 
Culpepper  Court  House  in  Virginia,  nine-tenths  of  the 
inhabitants  of  which  were  sympathisers  with  the  Con- 
federate cause.  We  were  received  by  the  ladies  of  the 
town,  who,  arrayed  in  the  oldest  and  shabbiest  of  cos- 
tumes they  could  have  collected  from  their  wardrobes, 
stood  confronting  us  on  their  doorsteps,  or  "  stoops." 
First  they  made  the  most  hideous  faces  at  us,  and  then 


19©  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

they  turned  their  backs  upon  us,  and  re-entered  their 
houses.  The  Confederates  did  worse  than  that  at  Bal- 
timore ;  they  used  to  have  miniature  union  flags  sewn 
into  the  "  hinder  stomachs  "  of  their  pantaloons,  and 
open  their  "  claw  hammers "  wide  while  a  Federal 
regiment  marched  past. 

1  went  straight  in  Rome  to  the  good  old  Hotel 
d'Angleterre,  in  the  Via  Bocca  di  Leone.  The  Silenzi 
family,  to  whom  this  admirably  conducted  house,  as 
well  as  the  Hotel  de  Russie,  close  to  the  Porta  del 
Popolo,  and  another  large  hotel  in  the  Piazza  di  Spag- 
na  belong,  are  "  black  " — nerissimi — I  mean  ultra-cler- 
ical. Monks  and  priests  and  monsignori  are  continually 
looking  in  at  the  Albergo  d'lnghilterra  and  a  couple 
of  years  since  I  was  honoured  by  a  visit  there  from 
His  Eminence  Cardinal  Vaughan  ;  yet  the  bulk  of  the 
guests  at  the  "  Angleterre  "  have  always  been,  within 
my  experience,  Protestants.  Now  and  again  an  Irish 
Roman  Catholic  priest,  or  a  Secret  Chamberlain  of 
the  Pope  has  made  his  appearance  at  the  table  dWiote, 
and  during  the  winter  seasons  certain  suites  of  apart- 
ments are  occupied  by  noble  Spanish  families,  neces- 
sarily Catholics.  For  the  rest,  I  could  enumerate  at 
least  a  dozen  Anglican  bishops  and  archdeacons,  and  I 
know  not  how  many  rectors  and  curates,  who  have 
taken  up  their  quarters  at  an  hotel,  the  cuisine  of 
which  is  the  best  in  Rome  ;  while  in  its  smoking-room 
you  hear  the  best  talk  in  Europe — and  I  have  heard 
some  very  good  talk  in  my  time. 

As  I  have  said,  the  period  of  my  stay  in  Rome  in 
1870  was  most  exciting;  since,  every  day,  from  the 
Italian  point  of  view,  there  was  something  to  be  en- 
thusiastic and  jubilant  about.  On  the  22d  of  Septem- 
ber a  mass  meeting  was  held  in  the  Colosseum  — 
which,  thenceforward,  was  to  be  given  up  to  archaeo- 
logical explorations,  vice  the  Stations  of  the  Cross— to 


THROUGH  THE  WALL  OF  ROME         I91 

choose  some  forty  eminent  citizens  to  form  a  junta,  or 
Provisional  Government,  the  President  of  this  body, 
approved  by  General  Cadorna,  being  the  Duke  Gae- 
tani.  On  the  30th,  to  the  intense  delight  of  the  Ro- 
mans, a  proclamation  from  General  Masi,  the  Com- 
mandant de  Place,  was  headed  by  the  anciently  historic 
"  S.  P.  Q.  R."  It  must  not,  however,  be  thought  that 
the  four  magic  initials  had  even,  when  the  Papal 
crown  and  the  cross-keys  appeared  on  all  official  doc- 
uments, wholly  vanished  from  public  Roman  ken.  If 
you  looked  at  the  official  journal,  you  would  mark 
from  time  to  time  notices  from  the  "  Senator  of  Rome," 
a  cloudy  personage,  having  his  office  in  the  Capitol, 
and  headed,  "  S.  P.  O.  R."  These  announcements, 
however,  did  not  usually  contain  matters  of  any  more 
importance  than  the  regulation  of  the  prices  of  beef 
and  bread  in  the  public  market. 

On  the  2d  of  October  took  place  the  plebiscitum. 
Out  of  the  total  number  of  votes,  233,681  were  cast  for 
union  with  the  Kingdom  of  Italy,  and  only  1,507  were 
against.  How  many  oaths  of  allegiance  did  Talley- 
rand, in  1830,  say  that  he  had  sworn?  Thirteen,  I 
think  ;  but  then  Charles  Maurice  de  Talleyrand-Peri- 
gord  was  seventy-six  when  he  pledged  his  allegiance 
to  Louis  Philippe.  I  am  not  a  diplomatist,  1  am  not  a 
wit,  and  I  never  had  Careme  for  my  cook,  yet,  before 
I  was  forty-two  I  had  witnessed  five  plebiscita  : — one 
for  the  election  of  Louis  Napoleon  as  President  of  the 
French  Republic  ;  a  second  one  for  his  election  to  the 
French  throne  ;  a  third  one  in  confirmation  of  the  de- 
sire of  the  French  to  remain  under  Imperial  rule  ;  and 
two  in  Italy  :  one  at  Venice  and  the  other  in  Rome. 

The  Pope  issued  a  protest  about  once  in  every  forty- 
eight  hours;  and  when  His  Holiness  was  not  protest- 
ing. Cardinal  Antonelli  kept  the  ball  rolling.  On  the 
9th  of  October,  General  La  Marmora  made  his  public 


192  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

entry  into  Rome  as  viceroy  ;  and  proclaimed  that  Pio 
Nono  should  be  confirmed  in  his  sovereign  rights  as 
Head  of  the  Church  ;  but,  naturally,  the  Papacy  behind 
St.  Peter's  Chair  were  not  satisfied  with  this  statement. 
The  Pope  was  advised  to  refuse  acceptance  of  the  an- 
nual dotation  of  fifty  thousand  crowns,  voted  him  by 
the  Italian  Parliament,  nor  has  that  dotation  ever  been 
accepted  ;  and  a  fresh  protest  was  made  by  Cardinal 
Antonelli,  when  it  was  announced,  that  on  the  arrival 
of  Victor  Emmanuel,  His  Majesty  would  occupy  the 
whilom  Papal  Palace  of  the  Quirinal. 

Soon  after  the  arrival  of  La  Marmora,  there  was  a 
grand  review  of  the  Italian  army,  in  the  Campo  di 
Marte,  at  which  the  populace  shrieked  themselves 
hoarse  with  cries  of  "  Viva  Italia  !  Viva  Vittorio  Enia- 
nuclc,  Re  elctto  in  Cainpidoglio  ;  "  but  these  exultant  cries 
were,  to  my  mind,  altogether  surpassed  by  the  utter- 
ance of  a  little  Roman  street-boy,  aged,  I  should  say, 
about  nine.  When  the  horse  artillery  came  trotting 
by,  this  brat,  capering  and  scampering  to  keep  pace 
with  the  horses,  yelled  ''  Viva  la  nostra  artiglcria  !  " — 
his  artillery,  forsooth  !  But  after  a  few  repetitions  of 
the  patriotic  cry,  habit  was  too  strong  for  the  urchin, 
and  he  concluded  his  antics  by  turning  a  rapid  succes- 
sion of  "  cart-wheels." 

Soon  after  this  imposing  spectacle,  I  was  recalled  to 
England.  The  siege  of  Paris  was  still  in  progress  ;  the 
Franco-German  War  almost  entirely  absorbed  public 
opinion ;  and  beyond  the  mere  fact  that  the  Italians 
had  entered  Rome,  and  that  Victor  Emmanuel  was  liter- 
ally, as  well  as  theoretically,  elected  King  in  the  capital, 
the  British  public  did  not  care  much  about  Roman 
affairs. 

It  is  not  my  business  to  be  a  moralist,  and  I  have 
studiously  endeavoured,  in  the  course  of  this  book,  to 
avoid   bombasting  my   pages  with   reflections  on  the 


THROUGH  THE  WALL  OF  ROME         I93 

political  events  which  I  have  witnessed.  But  as  I 
happen  to  have  a  considerable  infusion  of  Italian  blood 
in  my  veins  ;  as  the  language  and  the  literature  of  Italy 
are  as  familiar  to  me  as  those  of  my  own  country  ;  and 
as  I  once  remarked,  in  the  speech  of  my  father's  lan- 
guage, at  a  banquet  of  the  Italian  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce, at  which  the  Duke  of  Aosta  was  present,  that  I 
had  personally  known  Italy  in  her  darkest  season  of 
degradation  and  slavery  : — when  the  infernal  foreigner 
was  in  Lombard}^,  in  the  Dominio  Veneto,  and  at  An- 
cona ;  and  the  Papal  Legates  and  the  Papal  soldiery 
were  at  Bologna  and  in  the  States  of  the  Church — I 
think  I  may  be  pardoned  if  I  say  a  very  few  words 
about  the  ethics  of  the  occupation  of  Rome  by  Gen- 
eral Cadorna  and  his  troops,  on  September  20th,  1870. 
In  strict  morality,  perhaps,  the  act  was  indefensible. 
Victor  Emmanuel  was  not  at  war  with  the  Pope,  nor  had 
any  Italian  subjects  been  subjected  to  ill-usage  by  the 
Papal  Government.  Again,  by  the  withdrawal  of  the 
French  garrison,  Rome  was  practically  defenceless, 
since  it  was  obvious  that  the  small  continsrent  of  Ultra- 
montane  mercenaries  were  utterl}^  incompetent  to 
make  head  against  the  prodigious  forces  which  could 
be  brought  against  them  by  the  King  of  Italy. 

They  say  that  all  is  fair  in  love,  war,  and  election- 
eering ;  perhaps  the  same  may  be  said  of  politics.  The 
Cabinet  of  Victor  Emmanuel  saw  that  they  had  a  fine 
opportunity  before  them  ;  and  the  coast  being  clear, 
they  availed  themselves  of  that  opportunity,  lest  the 
action  they  must  have  so  long  contemplated  should  be 
impeded,  and  perhaps  wholly  frustrated,  by  the  jeal- 
ousies of  other  great  European  Powers.  Further- 
more, they  might  have  pleaded  that  by  the  prompt 
occupation  of  Rome,  they  prevented  the  outbreak  of 
insurrection  in  the  city,  and  consequent  effusion  of 
blood.  You  must  remember  that  233,000  Roman  citi- 
II.— 13 


194  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 


zens  voted  at  the  plebiscitum  for  union  with  Italy. 
Those  two  hundred  thousand  and  odd  supporters  oi 
Victor  Emmanuel  would  not  certainly  have  long  re- 
mained quiet  under  Papal  rule ;  they  would  have 
broken  out  in  revolt;  they  would  not  have  been 
spared  by  the  Papal  Government;  and  after  a  certain 
amount  of  slaughter,  the  Italian  Government  would 
have  been  absolutely  compelled  to  intervene. 

Perhaps  after  saying  this,  I  had  best  refer  the  ethics 
of  the  question  to  some  English  Debating  Society.     It 
would  not  be   by  any  means  an  uninteresting  topic  for 
discussion.     After  that  our  budding   Gladstones  and 
Beaconsfields  might  inquire  as  to  what  right  William 
of  Orange  had  to  invade  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland.     He  was  not  at  war  with  King 
James  II.,  to  whom  he  was  bound  by  the  closest  family 
ties  ;  he  was  not  called  to  invade  us  by  the  people  of 
England  as  a  bod  v.     He  only  came  at  the  request  of 
an  association   of   powerful    Whig   families ;    and  his 
coming  was  eminently  distasteful  to  the  majority  of 
the  Anglican  clergy,  and  to  the  two  great  Universities. 
He  was  hailed  as  a  Deliverer  by  the  Scotch  Presbyte- 
rians ;  but  the  Highlanders  were  almost  unanimously 
against  him  ;  and  he  was  certainly  not  wanted  by  the 
great  body  of  the  Irish  people  ;  but  he  saw  his  oppor- 
tunity and  availed  himself  of  it. 

When  they  had  disposed  of  this  question,  the  Debat- 
ing Society  might  discuss  whether  Napoleon  the  Great 
was  justified  in  returning  to  France  from  Elba.  The 
Allied  Sovereigns  in  their  manifesto,  in  which  they 
delivered  him  over  to  public  vengeance,  la  vindicte  piib- 
lique,  insinuating  thereby  that  they  would  be  very 
much  obhged  to  anybody  who  would  murder  the  in- 
vader, declared  that  his  claim  to  existence  had  been 
nullified  by  his  violation  of  the  compact  into  which  he 
had  entered  at  Fontainebleau.     It   so  happened  that 


THROUGH  THE  WALL  OF  ROME         195 

the  compact  had  already  been  violated  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  Louis  XVI 1 1, ,  which,  with  scandalous  dishon- 
esty, had  omitted  to  pay  him  the  stipulated  revenue 
settled  upon  him.  It  was  also  a  matter  of  notoriety 
that  the  diplomatists  assembled  at  Vienna  were  con- 
templating the  kidnapping  of  their  dangerous  neigh- 
bour, and  his  deportation  to  the  island  of  St.  Helena, 
or  to  some  other  far  remote  spot.  Finally,  Napoleon 
Avas  kept  constantly  alive  to  the  facts  that  the  Bour- 
bons were  desperately  unpopular  in  Paris ;  that  the 
army  were  almost  to  a  man  enthusiastically  favourable 
to  him  ;  that  the  judiciary  and  the  bureaucracy  were 
as  willing  to  serve  under  Imperial  as  under  Royal 
rule ;  and  that,  save  in  the  South,  the  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple, in  spite  of  the  repeated  decimations  of  the  Con- 
scription, preferred  his  rule  to  that  of  the  priest-ridden 
Bourbons,  with  their  haughty  emigrant  aristocracy, 
and  their  swarms  of  Jesuit  missionaries.  This  I  hope 
is  the  last  digression  on  which  I  shall  venture. 


CHAPTER    XLVIII 

GOING   TO   LAW,   AND   TO   BERLIN 

There  was  plenty  to  do  in  my  old  line  of  leader-writ- 
ing directly  I  got  back  to  London ;  and  the  recent  ex- 
perience which  I  had  gathered  both  in  France  and 
England  was  of  great  service  to  me  in  my  articles.  Of 
public  events  in  England,  requiring  special  narration, 
there  were  but  few.  Early  in  1871,  I  went,  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life,  to  law  ;  quite  unwittingly,  but,  strange 
to  say,  with  a  quite  unexpected  amount  of  success.  One 
day,  a  near  and  dear  friend,  whose  advice  I  have  al- 
ways valued  and  generally  followed,  came  to  me  and 
said,  "  George,  look  here  ;  you  must  bring  an  action  for 
libel  against  the  publishers  of  this  book."  He  handed 
me  a  little  volume  entitled  ''  Men  of  Letters  Honestly 
Criticised,"  the  author  of  which  was  a  certain  Mr. 
Hain  Friswell.  I  turned  to  the  article  relating  to  my- 
self, and  found  so  many  pages  of  attenuated  "  skimble- 
skamble,"  which,  although  sufficiently  ill-natured,  did 
not  strike  me  as  being  at  all  libellous  from  a  legal 
point  of  view. 

Here  and  again  were  innuendoes  that  I  had  squan- 
dered very  large  sums  which  I  had  gained  ;  and  that  I 
had  been  repeatedly  held  up  to  odium  as  a  sensational, 
foolish,  and  ungrammatical  writer  by  the  Saturday 
Reviezv,  and  other  influential  journals.  With  regard  to 
the  manner  in  which  my  income  had  been  expended,  I 
am  not  aware  that  I  had  been  very  lavish  in  any  respect, 
save  buying  a  great  many  more  rare  books  and  china 
than  I  wanted,  and  giving  away  a  good  deal  of  money 


GOING  TO   LAW,   AND   TO   BERLIN  1 97 

to  people,  the  majority  of  whom  naturally  have  requited 
me-  by  the  basest  ingratitude ;  and  besides,  what  I  had 
done  with  the  income  which  I  had  laboriously  earned 
was  my  business,  and  not  that  of  the  author  of  "  Men 
of  Letters  Honestly  Criticised."  Touching  my  being 
a  "  sensational,  foolish,  and  ungrammatical  writer,"  I 
have  over  and  over  again  criticised  myself  much  more 
harshly  than  any  of  my  critics  have  done.  I  know 
perfectly  well  that,  as  an  author,  I  belong  to  the 
second  class  ;  but  I  thank  God  that  I  have  always  been 
ready  to  recognise  and  to  acclaim  authors  of  the  first 
class. 

The  most  malevolent,  and  withal  the  drollest,  of  the 
aspersions  contained  in  Mr.  Friswell's  book,  had  refer- 
ence to  that  unfortunate  nose  of  mine.  How  it  got 
split  open  with  a  diamond  ring,  I  have  already  told  my 
readers  ;  but  that  nose  has  been  since  a  Slawkenbergian 
one,  and  has  brought  me  alternately  good  and  evil  fort- 
une. The  doctor  of  a  Life  Insurance  Company  once 
refused  to  pass  me  in  consequence  of  my  nose ;  but  I 
once  made  a  little  capital  out  of  it  at  a  crowded  public 
meeting  at  which  I  was  presiding  at  St.  Martin's  Hall, 
Long  Acre.  "  Where  did  you  get  your  blooming 
nose  ?  "  asked  an  unfriendly  member  of  the  audience. 
"  That  organ,"  I  replied,  "  is  permanently  blushing  at 
the  vices  of  the  age  ; "  upon  which  the  meeting  gave 
me  three  cheers.  But  my  nose  became  to  Mr.  Fris- 
well  a  permanent  worry  and  matter  for  discussion.  It 
was  to  him  as  King  Charles  I.'s  head  was  to  Mr.  Dick 
in  the  celebrated  Memorial.  He  insisted,  by  imputa- 
tion, that  it  was  a  Bacchanalian  nose,  a  dissolute  nose, 
a  depraved  nose,  and  perhaps  a  seditious  one. 

"  Is  it  worth  while?"  I  asked,  laying  down  the  book 
with  a  laugh.  "  Yes,"  replied  my  friend,  "  it  is  worth 
while.  You  must  go  to  George  Lewis  at  once."  So 
off  we  went  to  the  offices  of  Messrs.  Lewis  and  Lewis, 


198       LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

in  Ely  Place,  Holborn  ;  where  I  was  cordially  received 
by  Mr, — now,  and  worthily  so,  Sir — George  Lewis, 
who  said  that  there  zuas  something-  in  the  case,  and 
that  he  would  at  once  issue  a  writ  against  Messrs. 
Hodder  and  Stoughton,  a  most  respectable  firm  of 
publishers,  who  certainly  were  not  in  the  habit  of  issu- 
ing libellous  productions  :— their  commercial  staple 
being  theology.  I  may  here  mention  that  I  had  long 
been  acquainted  with  Mr.  James  Hain  Friswell,  a  gen- 
tleman of  about  my  own  age,  a  most  voluminous 
writer,  who  is  chiefly  remembered  by  a  work  called 
"  The  Gentle  Life,"  a  republication,  I  believe,  of  cer- 
tain essays  which  he  wrote  in  the  dear  old  Family  Her- 
ald— that  joy  to  scores  upon  scores  of  thousands  of 
innocent  English  households.  "The  Gentle  Life  "  was 
an  especial  favourite  with  the  lamented  Prince  Leo- 
pold, Duke  of  Albany. 

Mr.  Friswell  was  a  lucid,  and  sometimes  incisive, 
writer,  and  if  his  style  was  built  on  any  model,  it  was, 
I  should  sa}^  on  that  of  Thackeray.  When  I  first  knew 
him,  he  had  been  an  engraver  on  gold  and  silver  plate, 
and  was  an  assistant  of  Messrs.  Howell  and  James,  in 
Regent  Street.  He  had,  at  the  same  time,  a  decided 
capacity  for  literature,  and  drifted  into  that  uncertain 
and  delightful  profession.  On  more  than  one  occasion, 
I  had  been  enabled  to  do  him  some  slight  service — in 
particular,  having  to  go  abroad  on  some  Daily  Tele- 
graph mission,  while  I  was  writing  my  weekly  gossip 
in  the  Illustrated  London  Nezus,  I  made  over  my 
"Echoes"  to  him;  and  he  wrote  them,  I  have  no 
doubt,  in  a  very  sprightly  and  amusing  fashion  for  a 
good  many  weeks. 

In  the  interval  between  the  commencement  of  the 
litigation  and  the  trial,  I  repeatedly  puzzled  myself  as 
to  what  reason  I  can  possibly  have  given  Mr.  Friswell 
to  bear  me  any  ill-will.     Ultimately,  two  or  three  re- 


GOING   TO   LAW,   AND   TO   BERLIN  1 99 

mote,  causes  for  such  malevolence  dawned  upon  me.  I 
remembered  that  he  was  very  much  piqued  wdien  I 
once  inadvertently  told  him  that  Hepworth  Dixon,  the 
editor  of  the  Athenceiuii,  always,  but,  I  believ^e,  quite 
innocently,  persisted  in  calling  him  "  Mr,  Frizzle." 
Then  the  guiltier  consciousness  arose  in  me  that  I  had 
once  suggested  in  private  conversation  that  Hain  Fris- 
well  had  acquired  his  knowledge  of  the  Latin  language 
by  engraving  the  heraldic  mottoes  of  the  nobility  and 
gentry  on  spoons  and  forks.  Finally  I  remembered, 
that  when  I  was  in  Spain  for  the  first  time,  my  library 
had  been  sold  by  auction,  and  that  possibly  Mr.  Hain 
Friswell,  who  was  my  near  neighbour  in  Great  Rus- 
sell Street — I  living  at  the  time  in  Guildford  Street — r 
had  been  present  at  the  sale,  and  had  turned  over  the 
leaves  of  my  copy  of  "  The  Gentle  Life."  I  have  a 
craze  for  annotating  my  books;  and  it  is  just  within 
the  domain  of  likelihood  that,  on  certain  pages  of  Mr. 
Friswell's  masterpiece,  I  may  have  pencilled  such  dis- 
courteous remarks  as  "ineffable  donkey,"  "atrocious 
cad,"  "  sciolist,"  "  humbug,"  "  rot,"  and  the  like  ;  but 
I  had  never  borne  the  gentleman  any  malice  ;  I  rather 
liked  him  than  otherwise,  for  his  manner  was  smooth, 
and  his  conversation  agreeable. 

Not  more  than  a  month  elapsed  before  the  case  came 
on  for  trial,  which  took  place  in  the  Court  of  Queen's 
Bench,  Guildhall,  before  Lord  Chief  Justice  Cockburn 
and  a  special  jury.  Mr.  Montague  Chambers,  Q.C., 
was  against  me — the  name  of  his  junior  I  forget.  My 
counsel  was  the  late  Serjeant  Parry  ;  and  his  junior 
was  Mr.  Montagu  Williams.  Lawsuits,  in  those  days, 
rarely  reached  the  calamitous  length  which,  at  the 
present  day,  is  so  common.  My  case  came  on  at  ten 
a.m.,  and  it  was  finished  just  before  one  p.m.  The 
Serjeant,  after  the  case  had  been  opened  by  Montagu 
Williams,  made  a   brilliant  and   witty   address  to  the 


200  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


jury,  but  somehow  or  another  he  could  not  keep  clear 
of  my  unfortunate  nose.  He  said  that  its  discoloura- 
tion was  due  to  exposure  to  many  foreign  climates. 
Would  that  Mr.  George  Lewis  had  inserted  in  the 
Serjeant's  brief  a  note  to  the  effect  that  the  nose  had 
been  bifurcated  "  in  a  lite."  There  were  not  many 
witnesses.  For  the  plaintiff — myself — my  solicitors 
had  thought  fit  to  call  Mr.  Charles  Dickens,  Junior, 
who  could  only  testify  that  he  had  known  me  ever 
since  he  had  been  a  boy  at  school  at  Eton.  Next  came 
Mr.  Edward  Lawson,  who  gave  evidence  to  the  fact 
that  I  was  an  old  and  zealous  member  of  the  staff  of 
the  Daily  TelcgrapJi,  that  I  had  been  half  over  Europe 
on  their  service  ;  that  I  had  written  thousands  of  arti- 
cles for  them  ;  and  that,  as  one  of  the  proprietors  and 
editor  of  that  paper,  he  could  vouch  for  my  undeviat- 
ing  punctuality,  and  for  my  financial  integrity.  Mr. 
Montague  Chambers,  for  the  defence,  was  not  a  very 
bitter  opponent.  His  cJieval  dc  bataille  was  the  read- 
ing of  a  long  passage  from  an  essay  of  mine  in  All 
the  Year  Round,  which  the  Saturday  Reviezv  had  in- 
veighed against  as  sensational  rubbish.  But  the  jury, 
to  my  amusement,  seemed  to  be  rather  pleased  at  my 
essay,  and  laughed  heartily  at  some  of  the  paragraphs. 
Mr.  Serjeant  Parry  having  replied,  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice  summed  up,  as  I  thought,  somewhat  in  my 
favour,  and  then  the  jury  retired  to  consider  their 
verdict.  "  You'll  get  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  for 
certain,"  whispered  George  Lewis  to  me,  sitting  by 
my  side  in  the  well  of  the  Court.  "  You'll  get  two 
hundred  pounds,"  said  my  neighbour  on  the  other 
side,  Mr.  John  Maxwell,  the  husband  of  Miss  Brad- 
don.  Maxwell  had  wished  to  be  called  as  a  witness, 
because  he  wanted  to  say  that  in  the  numerous  and 
heavy  pecuniary  transactions  he  had  had  with  me,  he 
had  always  found   me  exact  to  a  pound,  exact  to  a 


GOING  TO   LAW,    AND   TO   BERLIN  20I 

shilling,  exact  to  a  penn3\  But  Mr.  Edward  Lawson's 
evidence  in  this  particular  was  so  straightforward,  and 
apparently  so  satisfactory  to  the  judge  and  the  jury, 
that  my  counsel  had  not  thought  it  necessary  to  put 
Maxwell  in  the  box.  At  the  expiration  of  twenty  min- 
utes the  jury  returned  into  Court.  "  Verdict  for  the 
plaintiff.     Damages  Five  Hundred  Pounds." 

Why  I  should  have  got  such  a  large  sum  I  have 
always  been  unable  to  determine.  Perhaps  my  white 
waistcoat,  and  a  rose  in  my  button-hole — it  was  winter, 
but  my  florist,  now  of  forty  years'  standing,  good  Mrs. 
Buck,  of  Covent  Garden,  always  took  care  that  I 
should  have  a  fresh  button-hole  every  morning — had 
something  to  do  with  the  favourable  judgment  of  the 
jury.  Sometimes  I  have  fancied  that  I  made  a  favour- 
able impression  on  the  foreman,  who  to  my  thinking 
was  a  merry  man,  and  on  whom  I  kept  my  eye 
throughout  the  trial ;  but  probably  my  success  was 
mainly  due  to  the  eloquence  and  impartial  summing 
up  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  whose  silver  voice  in 
polished  periods  I  can  hear  now.  Meanwhile,  the  un- 
happy Mr.  Hain  Friswell  was  tearing  his  hair — so  at 
least  I  was  told — in  the  adjacent  Guildhall  library.  I 
say  unhappy,  because  Messrs.  Hodder  and  Stoughton 
were,  not  unnaturally,  of  opinion  that,  as  the}-  had  not 
written  the  libel,  Mr.  Friswell,  and  not  themselves, 
ought  to  pay  the  damages  and  costs.  They  were  paid, 
however,  but  bv  whom  I  know  not.  Mr.  Friswell  was 
afflicted  by  continuous  bad  health  towards  the  close  of 
his  career,  and  he  died  in  1878. 

Five  hundred  pounds  damages!  Confound  them! 
They  never  did  me  the  slightest  amount  of  good. 
First  a  firm  of  solicitors  discovered  that  I  was  in  their 
debt  for  a  bill  of  costs  for  ;^8o,  contracted  some  years 
previously,  and  not  with  respect  to  any  matter  of  liti- 
gation,  and    this    I    paid    with    resignation.      Then    a 


202  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

worthy  tradesman,  who  had  supplied  me  with  a  large 
quantity  of  china,  earthenware,  and  glass  when  I  fur- 
nished my  house  in  Guildford  Street,  remembered 
that  I  owed  him  £i^o,  and  that  the  debt  was  within  a 
very  few  weeks  of  annihilation  by  the  Statute  of  Limi- 
tations. Him  also  did  I  pay.  On  this  followed  even 
more  irritating,  though  not  pecuniarily  afflictive,  appli- 
cations from  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people,  implor- 
ing, and  sometimes  bullying,  me  to  lend  them  large  or 
small  sums  of  money.  Blackmailing  had  not  then 
reached  the  dimensions  of  a  fine  art ;  or  perhaps  I 
should  have  been  the  victim  of  a  little  chantage.  These 
wretched  damages  so  preyed  upon  my  mind  that,  to 
relieve  me,  the  Daily  Telegraph  sent  me  to  Berlin  to 
witness  the  opening  of  the  German  Parliament. 

The  fmiction  was  to  me  a  deeply  interesting  one. 
The  session  was  opened  in  the  famous  White  Hall  of 
the  Schloss,  and  I  had  the  advantage  of  hearing  a 
speech  from  Prince  Bismarck.  The  delivery  of  the  ex- 
Chancellor  seemed  to  me  extremely  rapid  ;  but,  in- 
different German  scholar  as  I  have  always  been,  I 
could  understand  almost  all  he  said.  In  particular  did 
1  notice  the  occasional  shrillness  of  the  Chancellor's 
voice,  all  the  more  remarkable  from  the  massive  frame 
of  the  orator.  We  had,  of  course,  a  resident  corre- 
spondent in  the  Prussian  capital,  and,  under  his  aus- 
pices, I  saw  a  good  deal  of  manners  and  customs  in 
Berlin.  Specially  do  I  remember  a  Tabaks  Collegium 
and  Beer  Symposium  of  students  of  the  University. 
Considering  the  amount  of  smoke  from  porcelain 
pipes,  by  which  I  was  surrounded  for  four  hours,  I 
only  wonder  that  on  the  following  morning  I  did  not 
find  myself  transformed  into  a  kippered  salmon  or  a 
Yarmouth  bloater. 

As  for  the  beer,  which  they  drank  incessantly  by  the 
Seidel,  I  may  say  that  I  consider  beer  to  be  one  of  the 


GOIN'G   to   law,   and   to   BERLIN  203 


most  delicious  of  beverages,  but  that  I  have  never  been 
able  to  drink  it  with  impunity.  The  courteous  Biir- 
schcn,  however,  recognised,  although  they  may  have 
secretly  reprehended  my  infirmity  in  this  respect ;  and 
I  was  regaled  with  hock  and  allowed  to  smoke  cigars 
instead  of  a  pipe.  They  told  me  what  "  Philistine  " 
meant,  together  with  much  more  student  lore ;  and 
then,  about  eleven  by  the  clock,  we  began  to  sing 
songs.  First  came  the  "  Wacht  am  Rhein ; "  next 
"  Prinz  Eugen,  der  alte  Ritter ;  "  then  Korner's  "  Ge- 
bet,"  and  his  "  Song  of  the  Sword,"  and  then  a  young 
fellow  full  six  feet  high,  with  auburn  hair,  sang  with 
great  solemnity  the  exquisitely  humorous  Studenten 
Lied  about  the  bibulous  party  who,  for  three  whole 
days,  did  nothing  but  drink  beer  at  a  tavern  at  Asca- 
lon ;  until  at  length  he  lay  stiff  and  stark  as  a  poker 
on  a  marble  bench,  I  was  asked  to  sing.  I  did  not 
venture  on  the  Teutonic ;  but  I  gave  my  friends,  in 
English,  Mrs.  Abdy's  beautiful  song,  "  The  Rhine," 
founded  on  the  anecdote  that  when  the  German 
armies,  returning  victorious,  from  the  occupation  of 
Paris,  in  18 14,  arrived  at  the  bridge  of  Kehl  and  be- 
held their  beloved  river,  thev  uttered  one  tremendous 
and  unanimous  shout,  "  Der  Rhein  ! — der  Rhein  !  " 
and  rushed  forward  at  the  double  quick  to  salute  the 
historic  stream. 

Another  interesting  social  service  did  our  resident 
correspondent  in  Berlin  render  me.  He  obtained  a 
permit  to  visit  the  fortress  of  Spandau,  where  there 
were  confined  as  prisoners  of  war,  some  thousands  ot 
French  soldiers,  most  of  them  belonging  to  the  un- 
fortunate, and,  perhaps,  betrayed,  garrison  of  Metz. 
I  found  these  brave  men  comfortably  housed  in  light 
and  cheerful  day-rooms,  and  spacious  and  well-venti- 
lated dormitories,  and  was  present  at  their  dinner, 
which  was  abundant  in  the  way  of  boiled  meat,  suet 


204  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


pudding,  and  vegetables.  I  was  informed,  however, 
that  breaches  of  the  regulations  were  visited  by  con- 
finement in  the  casements  of  the  citadel,  and  by  re- 
stricted rations.  Some  hundreds  of  the  captives,  after 
dinner,  took  to  card-playing  ;  and,  as  most  of  them 
were  penniless,  the  loser  paid  his  indebtedness  by  re- 
ceiving a  certain  number  of  playful  pats  on  the  cheek 
from  the  winner.  Their  principal  want  was  tobacco ; 
and  my  friend  and  myself  had  come  provided  with  a 
good  stock  both  of  tobacco  for  pipes,  and  cheap  cigars, 
which  were  almost  rapturously  received  when  they 
were  distributed. 


CHAPTER    XLIX 

IN   ST.    PAUL'S   AND   AT   CHISLEHURST 

Returning  to  London,  I  went  "  into  collar  again," 
and  did  not  again  leave  England,  save  for  my  usual 
autumnal  vacation  at  Homburg,  during  the  rest  of  the 
year  1871.  I  was  present  professionally  at  the  open- 
ing by  the  Prince  of  Wales,  of  the  first  International 
Exhibition  at  South  Kensington,  and  at  the  opening, 
by  Her  Majesty  the  Queen,  on  the  21st  of  June,  of  the 
new  St.  Thomas's  Hospital. 

Everybody  knows  what  took  place  towards  the  close 
of  the  year  1871.  At  the  opening  of  St.  Thomas's 
Hospital,  Mr.  Ernest  Hart,  by  whom  I  was  seated, 
close  to  the  throne,  observed  that  the  Prince  of  Wales 
was  not  well  ;  he  was  continually  sneezing.  Some 
weeks  afterwards  it  was  reported  that  His  Royal 
Highness  was  out  of  health,  and  then,  for  many  weeks, 
he  was  afflicted  by  a  dreadful  illness,  somewhat  re- 
sembling that  which  had  carried  off  his  illustrious 
father.  The  death  of  the  Prince  Consort  had  been  al- 
together a  surprise,  but  week  after  week  did  the  whole 
British  nation  tremble  lest  a  fatal  end  should  come  to 
the  illness  of  the  beloved  heir  to  the  Crown  ;  and  one 
great  sigh  of  relief  and  joy  arose  from  the  national 
heart  when  the  crisis  was  successfully  passed,  and 
when  the  news  ran  like  wildfire  through  the  land  that 
the  Prince,  sitting  up  in  bed,  had  asked  for  a  glass  of 
Norfolk  ale.  I  was  present  at  the  memorable  Thanks- 
giving Service  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  on  the  22d  of 
February,  1872.     The  Dean  considerately  set  apart  for 


206  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

the  representatives  of  the  press  a  spacious  galler}^ 
whence  we  could  witness  the  entire  proceedings, 
which  I  refrain  from  describing  in  detail,  seeing  that 
they  can  be  found  in  the  "  Annual  Register,"  or  in  any 
file  of  London  newspapers.  It  was,  so  far  as  costume 
went,  a  superb  spectacle,  and  the  Judges  in  their  scar- 
let, the  Lord  Mayor  and  Corporation  in  their  robes, 
the  clergy  in  their  canonicals,  with  a  plentiful  admixt- 
ure of  naval  and  military  uniforms,  made  the  bravest 
of  brave  shows :  to  say  nothing  of  the  crowning 
glories  of  the  presence  of  the  Sovereign,  the  Prince  of 
Wales  and  the  Royal  Family,  and  a  stately  Court. 

Still,  the  environments  of  this  gorgeous  array  were 
cold  and  devoid  of  an  essential  element  of  splendour- 
bright  light.  St.  Paul's  can  never  be  anything  more, 
so  far  as  its  interior  is  concerned,  than  a  friofid  and 
poorly-illumined  edifice.  Dr.  Johnson  likened  it  to  a 
"  sun-dial  in  a  grave."  The  architecture  and  the  statu- 
ary are  alike  chilly,  and  lacking  in  the  picturesque, 
and  although  a  good  deal  has  been  done  within  recent 
years  in  partial  mosaic  decorations,  it  is  not  probable 
that  in  our  time,  at  least,  sufficient  sums  will  be  obtain- 
able for  completely  garnishing  the  superb  structure, 
that  is  to  say,  by  covering  the  whole  of  the  walls  by- 
mosaics,  gilding  the  capitals  and  the  flutings  of  the 
columns,  draping  the  side  chapels  with  handsome 
tapestry,  and  laying  down  handsome  Oriental  carpets 
on  the  floor  of  the  nave.  This  is  a  dream,  of  course ; 
but  what  is  life  but  a  dream,  with  a  good  many  night- 
mares/^r  c^cssHs  Ic  mar  did  ? 

I  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  Claimant  during  1872.  So 
far  back  as  May,  1871,  his  pretensions  having  been  re- 
sisted on  behalf  of  Sir  Henry  Tichborne,  a  minor,  and 
son  of  Sir  Alfred  Tichborne,  an  action  of  ejectment 
was  brought  by  the  Claimant  in  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas,  presided  over   by  Lord   Chief   Justice   Bovill. 


IN   ST.   PAUL'S   AND   AT   CHISLEHURST  20/ 

The  Claimant  was  examined  during  twenty-two  days. 
It  was  adjourned  on  the  fortieth  day  and  resumed  in 
November,  and  the  case  on  behalf  of  the  Claimant  was 
closed  just  before  Christmas.  He  was  constantly  at 
Watts  Phillips's  house,  and  at  Mr.  Bloxam's;  and  I  re- 
member once  dining  with  him  and  the  late  Mr.  Ser- 
jeant Ballantine  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Labouchere,  who 
then  resided  in  Bolton  Street,  Piccadilly.  The  senior 
Member  for  Northampton  had,  upon  occasion,  a  curi- 
ous way  of  directly  putting  things ;  and  over  the  wal- 
nuts and  the  wine — of  which  our  host  was  not  a  par- 
taker— he  startled  us  all  by  coolly  asking  his  obese 
guest,  "  Are  you  Arthur  Orton  ?  "  "  Good  heavens  ! 
Mr.  Labouchere,"  exclaimed  the  stout  litigant,  "  what 
do  you  mean?"  "Oh,  nothing  in  particular,"  quoth 
Mr.  Labouchere  ;  "  help  yourself  to  some  more  claret." 
On  the  17th  March,  1872,  things  in  this  extraor- 
dinary lawsuit  came  to  a  crisis.  A  great  meeting  of 
the  Claimant's  supporters  was  held  at  a  fashionable 
hotel  in  Jermyn  Street,  where  he  had  for  some  time 
resided  ;  and  I  was  present,  but  in  an  altogether  neutral 
capacity.  I  never  clearly  understood  the  rights  or 
wrongs  of  this  Tichborne  case,  and  probably  I  never 
shall.  About  two  o'clock  a  messenger  arrived  with 
the  alarmina:  intelligence  that  the  Jurv  in  the  Court  of 
Common  Pleas  had  expressed  themselves  satisfied  that 
the  Claimant  was  not  Sir  Roger  Tichborne,  and  that  he 
was  consequently  nonsuited.  The  perturbation  among 
the  gentlemen  who  had  assisted  the  Claimant,  not  only 
with  advice,  but  with  pecuniary  means  for  carrying  on 
his  action,  was  intense.  Tichborne  bonds  for  very  large 
sums  of  money,  and  redeemable  when  the  Claimant 
should  be  placed  in  possession  of  his  title  and  estates, 
had  been  freely  taken  up  ;  and  one  of  the  largest  holders 
of  these  bonds  was,  I  remember,  an  Italian  gentleman, 
engaged  in  some  mercantile  or  financial  business  in  the 


208  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


City.  It  was  edifying  to  watch  his  countenance  at  the 
recital  of  the  news  from  Westminster  Hall.  First  he 
turned  very  white,  and  then  very  blue.  There  was  a 
refreshment  buffet  in  the  room  ;  and  the  investor  helped 
himself  to  two  bumpers  of  sherry,  remarking  that  that 
was  probably  all  he  should  ever  get  for  his  investment. 
The  generous  vintage  of  Xeres  brought  at  least  some 
crimson  to  his  cheeks,  and  made  him  look  for  the 
moment  quite  warm  and  comfortable. 

Presently  the  Claimant  joined  us.  The  mysterious 
personage  did  not  look  in  the  least  discomfited ;  nor 
did  his  speech  betray  the  slightest  trace  of  agitation. 
He  spoke  quietly,  composedly,  and  even  cheerfully; 
and  commenting  on  some  of  the  hostile  evidence  which 
had  been  adduced  against  him,  chatted  about  "  his 
brother  officers,"  and  how  he  and  they  used  to  fish 
"  our  Hampstead  waters."  A  remarkable  person,  and 
the  coolest  of  cards,  anyhow  !  On  the  following  day 
he  was  arrested  and  lodged  in  Newgate,  to  be  tried 
for  perjury  ;  and  on  the  9th  of  April  he  was  indicted 
as  Thomas  Castro,  alias  Arthur  Orton,  for  perjury  and 
forgery,  and  his  trial  in  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench 
before  Chief  Justice  Cockburn  and  Justices  Mellor 
and  Lush,  began  on  the  23d  of  April.  Up  to  the  27th 
of  June,  above  a  hundred  witnesses  had  sworn  that  the 
Claimant  was  not  Roger  Tichborne,  and  about  forty 
that  he  was  Arthur  Orton. 

But  I  was  not  to  see  him  again — and  then  only  once 
— for  a  very  long  time.  Throughout  1872  I  had  been 
in  painfully  ailing  health,  and  was  sickening,  so  I  had 
mournful  reason  to  augur,  for  some  great  malady.  1 
continued,  however,  to  work  with  dogged  persever- 
ance ;  and  there  is  nothing  to  record  touching  the  daily 
tale  of  bricks,  which,  in  the  way  of  leading  articles,  I 
had  to  construct.  The  year  dragged  itself  out  in 
physical  pain  and  mental  misery  ;  and  the  New  Year 


IN   ST.   PAUL'S   AND   AT   CHISLEHURST  2O9 

brought  no  amelioration  in  my  condition.  On  the  9th 
of  January,  Napoleon  III.  died,  at  Chislehurst,  and  had 
I  been  at  death's  door — that  is  to  say,  if  I  had  only 
been  able  to  crawl  in  and  out  of  a  carriage — I  should 
have  thought  it  my  duty  to  my  proprietors  and  to  my- 
self to  attend  the  funeral  of  the  ex-Emperor.  It  was 
settled  that  Edward  Dicey  and  myself  should  drive 
down  to  Camden  Place  in  a  brougham  and  pair  early 
in  the  morning,  as  a  tremendous  rush  on  the  railway 
train  was  anticipated.  Dicey  had  already  been  down 
to  the  house  of  death  to  see  the  lying -in -state  of 
the  deceased  monarch,  whose  embalmed  corpse  —  the 
moustaches  duly  waxed,  and  the  cheeks  slightly 
rouged  —  lay  in  the  cofhn,  visible  to  all  who  passed 
through  the  mortuary  chamber,  which  had  been  con- 
verted into  a  cJiapcUc  ardcntc.  Throughout  the  day, 
which  was  one  of  the  most  arduous  I  ever  passed,  we 
had  all  of  us  to  be  grateful  to  the  good  offices  rendered 
to  us  by  Father  Goddard,  the  chaplain  of  the  little 
Roman  Catholic  Church  at  Chislehurst,  and  by  a  most 
energetic  and  intelligent  officer  of  police,  the  late  Su- 
perintendent Mott. 

The  ceremony  in  the  church  was  exceedingly 
simple :  indeed,  it  might  have  been  the  obsequies 
of  a  private  gentleman.  The  church  w^as  draped  in 
black,  and  there  were  many  lighted  candles  in  tall 
candelabra  ;  but  there  was  no  heraldic  or  Imperial 
display  ;  nothing  to  remind  you  that  the  deceased  had 
been  Emperor  of  the  French,  and  that  he  was  a  Knight 
of  the  Most  Noble  Order  of  the  Garter.  The  young 
Prince  Imperial  was  in  plain  evening  dress ;  but  he 
wore  the  broad  red  riband  and  star  of  the  Grand  Cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  Looking  at  the  poor  be- 
reaved lad,  I  could  not  help  remembering  the  quiet 
rebuke  given  by  his  father  when  he  was  a  captive  at 
the   Luxembourg,  awaiting  trial    after  the   Boulogne 

H.  — 14 


2IO       LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 


attempt,  to  a  pert  j'u^c  d'instriiction,  who  asked  him  by 
what  right  he  was  wearing  the  insignia  of  a  Grand 
Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  "  The  founder  of  the 
Order,"  replied  Prince  Louis  Napoleon,  "  gave  them 
to  me  when  I  was  in  my  cradle."  The  founder  of  the 
Order  was  Napoleon  the  Great. 

But  how  difficult,  nay,  how  almost  impossible,  it  is 
to  exclude  droll  images  from  the  most  solemn  scenes, 
and  banish  irreverent  thoughts  from  the  mournfullest 
cogitations !  I  really  was  sorry  for  Napoleon  III., 
who  had  been  kind  to  me,  whose  career  I  had  followed 
with  abiding  interest,  and  who,  notwithstanding  all 
the  errors  which  he  committed,  did,  in  his  time  of  su- 
premacy, an  immensity  of  good  to  the  French  people. 
It  happened  while  the  service  was  being  performed 
that  a  colleague  sitting  next  to  me  asked  the  name  of 
the  particular  function  of  the  Roman  Church  which 
was  being  celebrated.  1  replied  that  I  did  not  ex- 
actly know  ;  whereupon  I  heard  a  voice,  with  a  pro- 
nounced German  accent,  just  behind  me  saying,  "  Why, 
of  course,  it  is  a  Low  Mass."  I  turned  round  and  be- 
held my  old  acquaintance  Herr  Meyer  Lutz,  of  the 
Gaiety  Theatre,  to  Avhom  the  musical  part  of  the  ar- 
rangements had  been  confided.  Imagine  a  momentary 
vision  of  Toole  in  Wat  Tyler,  and  Miss  Nellie  Farren 
as  Sir  Reginald  Plantagenet  rising  before  me,  even 
while  the  choir  were  chanting  the  awful  strophes  of 
the  Dies  IrcB  ! 

My  presence  at  the  funeral  of  Napoleon  III.  was  my 
last  appearance  in  public  for  many  months.  It  was  a 
raw,  bleak  January  day,  and  I  went  home  with  a  chill; 
and  on  the  next  day  some  slight  touches  of  fever 
supervened.  Then  I  fell  ill  in  right  earnest  with  a 
dreadful  malady  called  erythema.  The  doctors  know 
well  enough  what  it  is ;  to  the  laity  I  need  only  say 
that  I  turned  from  head  to  foot  a  reddish  purple,  and 


IN   ST.   PAUL'S   AND   AT   CHISLEHURST  211 

that  I  wore  from  January  to  July  the  shirt  of  Nessus. 
I  tried  hard  to  go  on  with  my  work  ;  and,  at  ray  urgent 
request,  my  friends  in  Fleet  Street  sent  me  to  Bromp- 
ton,  one  of  the  leading  members  of  their  Parliamentary 
reporting  staff.  He  took  down  in  shorthand  a  review, 
which  I  dictated  to  him,  of  Lord  Lytton's  posthumous 
novel,  "  Kenelm  Chillingly."  When  I  had  finished 
that  article,  it  was  decided  by  my  medical  attendants 
that  I  must  have  for  some  time  complete  rest  from  in- 
tellectual employment.  They  could  not,  in  my  judg- 
ment, have  arrived  at  a  more  imprudent  decision.  I 
was  helpless  enough  physically.  Heaven  knows ;  but 
the  machine  of  my  mind  had  not  run  down.  The  doc- 
tors arbitrarily  stopped  the  driving-wheel ;  and  the 
cessation  of  literary  work  did  not  give  me  that  relief 
which  they  hoped  and  expected  that  I  should  enjoy. 
I  did  not  go  mad  ;  but  I  had  frequent  fits  due  alike  to 
bodily  pain  and  mental  anguish,  and  what  with  my 
bowlings  and  shriekings,  and  the  need  I  was  in  of  con- 
stant help  and  supervision,  I  am  really  astonished  that 
I  did  not  drive  my  poor  wife  and  my  faithful  servants 
out  of  their  senses. 

My  friends  in  Fleet  Street  wanted  to  send  Sir  Will- 
iam Gull  to  me  ;  but  another  friend,  Dr.  J.  P.  Steele, 
then  one  of  the  sub-editors  of  the  Lancet,  and  who  had 
been  a  staunch  ally  of  James  Hannay,  when  the  latter 
was  editing  the  EdinlnirgJi  Courant,  brought  me  Dr. 
Anstie,  the  editor  of  the  Practitioner,  and  a  physician 
who  was  then  steadily  rising  to  eminence  in  his  benefi- 
cent profession.  Large  as  my  acquaintance  with  doc- 
tors had  been,  I  never  met  a  more  resourceful  man 
than  Dr.  Anstie,  who  died,  you  will  remember,  of 
blood-poisoning  while  he  was  attending  to  the  sanita- 
tion of  an  orphanage  in  the  suburbs  of  London. 
Nothing  discouraged  him  ;  nothing  made  him  lose 
hope  or  heart.     I  was  the  most  troublesome  of  patients 


212  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


— a  sick  leopard,  plentifully  spotted,  would  have  been 
about  the  fittest  image  for  me ; — but  he  did  not  mind 
my  cries  and  objurgations  at  all ;  and  when  one  experi- 
ment had  failed,  very  cheerfully  set  about  trying  an- 
other. To  exclude  the  air  from  my  burning  body 
was,  in  his  opinion,  the  grand  desideratum  ;  and  for 
that  purpose  I  was  successively  painted  all  over  with 
collodion  flexile  ;  with  flowers  of  sulphur  ;  with  white 
of  Q%^-,  and  with  Canada  balsam.  Ugh  !  no  more  of 
my  aches  and  pains  ! 

The  mental  trouble  was  the  greatest.  The  nerves  of 
my  mind,  so  to  speak,  were  continually  on  the  stretch  ; 
and  this  tension  resulted  in  a  protracted  attack  of  in- 
somnia. Thousands  of  lines  did  I  recite  night  after 
night,  week  after  week,  from  Scott,  from  Byron,  from 
Spenser,  from  Virgil,  and  from  Victor  Hugo  ;  but  no 
sleep  came.  Dr.  Anstie  essayed  hypnotic  after  hyp- 
notic; he  tried  the  old  French  remedy — musk  pills 
taken  every  quarter  of  an  hour ;  he  tried  chloral ;  syrup 
of  poppies  in  old  ale  ;  and  how  many  hundreds  of  drops 
of  laudanum  in  Batley's  solution  of  opium  I  took  in 
one  dose  I  do  not  care  to  tell,  because  many  of  my 
readers,  I  have  little  doubt,  would  think  I  was  not  tell- 
ing the  truth.  A  kind  lady  sent  me  a  hop  pillow,  but 
that  did  no  good ;  then  we  tried  Dr.  Franklin's  device 
of  changing  from  bed  to  bed — useless.  At  last  Dr. 
Anstie  came  with  a  little  golden  syringe  and  injected 
morphia  into  my  left  arm.  The  hypodermic  pJiar- 
niakon  did  not  give  me  sound  sleep,  but  it  sent  me  into 
a  feathery,  painless,  and  almost  balmy  state.  Ever}'- 
body  was  very  good  to  me.  Dr.  Anstie  came  every 
morning ;  and  Dr.  Steele  was  with  me  three,  and  some- 
times four,  times  a  day.  Watts  Phillips  was  constant 
in  his  visits,  nor  did  Mr.  Labouchere  forget  to  come 
to  see  me. 

I  was  so  bad  at  the  bes^inning:  of  the  summer  that 


IN   ST,    PAUL'S   AND   AT   CHISLEHURST  213 

Dr.  Anstie,  for  the  first  time  almost  reduced  to  de- 
spair, thought  it  best  that  I  should  try  the  soft  air  of 
St.  Leonards ;  so  the  railway  company  sent  the  invalid 
carriage  for  me ;  and  my  miserable  self,  together  with 
the  whole  household  and  loyal  Dr.  Steele,  who  had 
resolved  to  see  us  installed,  went  down  to  a  pretty 
furnished  house  which  we  had  taken  on  some  high 
lands  above  the  charming  watering-place  of  St.  Leon- 
ards. How  I  hated  the  lovely  place  !  The  sight  of 
the  pretty  shops  of  the  Marina  was  horrible  to  my 
view,  and  the  little  lambs  skipping  about  in  the  past- 
ures called  Bo-Peep,  looked  to  me  like  so  many  small 
wolf-cubs.  Why  ?  I  had  lost  the  use  of  my  limbs.  The 
continual  bedevilments  to  Avhich  my  frame  had  been 
subjected,  had  ended  in  partial  paralysis  of  the  vaso- 
motor nerves ;  so  when  I  took  carriage  exercise,  I  had 
to  be  placed  horizontally  on  a  mattress  laid  on  a  plank ; 
then  they  covered  me  up  with  bed-clothes,  and  I  had 
as  literally  a  bed-room  on  wheels  as  though  I  had  been 
a  passenger  on  board  a  Pullman  sleeping  car. 

This  agreeable  state  of  affairs  went  on  to  the  end  of 
July,  and  as  the  enthusiastically  affectionate  Steele 
persisted  in  publishing  weekly  bulletins  of  ni)-  health, 
or  rather  the  lack  of  it,  in  the  Lancet,  a  large  number 
of  my  friends  must  have  been  expecting  my  speedy 
decease.  In  fact,  an  esteemed  brother  journalist  at- 
tached to  an  influential  Conservative  daily  paper,  told 
me  that,  after  reading  one  of  the  bulletins,  he  had 
pigeon-holed  a  concise  memoir  of  myself,  which  would 
have  duly  appeared  had  I  gone  to  the  bad.  "  It  is  at 
the  office  still,"  he  said  artlessly,  "  and  it  is  not  likely 
it  will  ever  be  lost ;  since  I  wa"Ote  it  in  a  penny  wash- 
ing book  with  a  red  cover,  with  a  nice  white  label  and 
your  name  on  it."  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the  single 
gentleman  who  lived  in  his  own  house  next  door  to 
our  furnished  one,  was  so  disturbed  by  my  daily  and 


214       LII'^E  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

ni^^htly  groans  and  shrieks,  that  he  actually  had  to 
shift  his  quarters  to  South  Kensington,  London.  I 
verily  believe  that  the  single  gentleman  thought  that 
his  next  door  neighbour  \vas  a  lunatic.  However,  I 
was  sane  enough  to  appreciate  the  services  of  Dr.  Bag- 
shaw,  to  whose  care  I  had  been  made  over  by  Dr. 
Anstie.  Dr.  Bagshaw  thought  that  he  could  do  some- 
thing with  me  by  means  of  galvanism,  and  thrice  a 
week  he  used  to  operate  on  my  extremities  with  an 
apparatus  of  which  I  could  make  neither  head  nor  tail, 
but  which,  in  about  a  month  gave  me  back  the  use  of 
my  lower  limbs. 

Growing  gradually  stronger,  I  was  despatched  to 
Brighton.  I  could  walk,  but  with  great  difficulty  ;  and 
proceeding  to  the  Grand  Hotel,  I  deliberately  engaged 
a  room  in  the  very  topmost  storey  ;  so  that  I  might 
painfully  crawl  up  and  down  stairs,  resting  on  occasion 
and  then  resuming  the  crawl,  in  order  that  my  mus- 
cles might  be  gradually  strengthened.  I  wholly  ab- 
jured the  use  of  the  lift  and  kept  my  pledge.  Luckily 
enough,  one  afternoon,  looking  through  an  open  win- 
dow on  the  hotel  staircase,  I  became  aware  of  a  gen- 
tleman in  a  short  jacket,  black  silk  continuations,  white 
stockings,  and  half  boots,  who  was  walking  round  and 
round  a  paved  area  which  had  been  laid  out  for  the 
purposes  of  a  skating  rink,  a  site  now  covered  by  the 
Hotel  Metropole.  I  recognised  the  "  walkist "  as 
the  well-known  professional  American  pedestrian,  Mr. 
Edward  Weston,  of  whom  1  had  some  slight  knowl- 
edge ;  in  fact,  he  might  have  claimed  some  journalistic 
friendship  with  me,  inasmuch  as  he  told  me  that  he 
had  begun  his  career  as  a  news-boy  at  New  York.  I 
resumed  my  acquaintance  with  him,  and  he  very 
kindly  gave  me  some  most  valuable  lessons  in  walk- 
ing. I  could  get  about  tolerably  well  on  my  feet  now, 
but  I  have  never  been  able  to  walk  steadily  ;  and  woe 


IN   ST.    PAUL'S   AND   AT   CHISLEHURST  215 

betide  the  lady  who  is  imprudent  enough  to  accept 
the  arm  which  I  sometimes  proffer  to  a  member  of  the 
fair  sex  :  forgetting  what  a  stumbling  creature  I  have 
become.  Lord  Sandwich  used  to  say  that  he  knew  a 
man  who  walked  on  both  sides  of  the  street  at  once. 
Can  you  understand  the  process  of  walking  over  )'our 
own  feet  ?     That  is  what  I  have  done  for  many  years. 

Nothing  remarkable  happened  to  me  in  1874;  and 
I  had  no  adventures.  The  Daily  TelcgrapJi  did  not 
think  I  was  strong  enough  to  go  to  St.  Petersburg  for 
the  marriage  of  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh  with  the 
daughter  of  the  Emperor  Alexander  II.  ;  but  I  was 
present  at  Guildhall  on  the  i8th  of  May,  when  the 
Tsar  was  entertained  with  magnificent  hospitality  by 
the  Lord  Mayor,  I  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the 
International  Exhibition  at  Kensington,  which  closed 
in  October ;  but  my  work  was  simply  so  much  me- 
chanical business  ;  and  I  should  say  that  by  this  time, 
placable  reader,  you  have  had  enough  of  the  descrip- 
tions of  exhibitions,  international  and  otherwise,  from 
my  tedious  pen.  I  should  also  mention  that  in  1873 
my  illness  prevented  me  from  exercising  my  visual 
functions  as  art  critic  to  the  Daily  Telegraph  at  the  Ex- 
hibition of  the  Royal  Academy  ;  but  in  1874  I  returned 
with  great  glee  to  that  particular  branch  of  my  em- 
ployment as  a  journalist. 


CHAPTER   L 

COLLAPSE   OF   THE   CLAIMANT 

I  HAVE  said  that  nothing  of  an  adventurous  kind  befel 
me  in  1874;  but  a  tremendously  remarkable  adventure 
was,  on  the  28th  of  February  in  that  year,  the  lot  of 
the  stout  Sphinx  of  whom  1  have  more  than  once 
made  mention  in  these  pages.  The  case  for  the  prose- 
cution of  Castro,  or  Orton,  or  whoever  the  strange 
man  may  be,  had  closed  late  in  January.  He  had 
been  liberated  on  heavy  bail  ;  but  the  end  was  com- 
ing ;  and  there  were  very  few  intelligent  people  who 
entertained  a  doubt  as  to  what  the  verdict  could  be. 
On  February  the  27th,  Edward  Lawson  wrote  to  say 
that  he  would  call  for  me  in  Thistle  Grove  early  the 
next  morning,  in  order  that  we  might  go  down  to 
the  Law  Courts  at  Westminster  and  see  the  last  of 
the  Claimant.  Accordingly,  by  ten  o'clock  we  gained 
admission  to  the  crowded  court.  I  was  not  to  see  the 
face  of  the  defendant  until  some  hours  afterwards.  I 
was  behind  him  on  one  of  the  benches  reserved  for 
counsel ;  but  I  could  see  his  broad  back  looming  large 
in  the  offing  like  some  huge  man-of-war  hulk  moored 
in  ordinary.  Close  to  him  sat  two  or  three  gentlemen 
in  private  clothes,  whom  I  easily  recognised  as  super- 
intendents or  inspectors  of  police  ;  then  I  could  make 
out  the  handsome  countenance  of  Sir  John  Duke  Cole- 
ridge, afterwards  Lord  Coleridge,  Chief  Justice  of 
England  ;  and  in  particular,  could  I  descry  the  gold- 
rimmed  spectacles  and  abundant  whiskers  of  that  sin- 


COLLAPSE   OF   THE   CLAIMANT  2I7 

gularly  able,  wrong-headed,  and  unfortunate  advocate, 
Dr.  Kenealy. 

I  call  him  unfortunate ;  because  Edward  Kenealy 
was  a  man  of  immense  scholarship,  of  profound  legal 
erudition,  and  wide  ranging  general  attainments,  which 
should  have  gained  him  the  highest  professional  rank, 
and  the  admiration  of  his  contemporaries;  but  there 
was,  I  should  say,  a  moral  "  kink  in  his  cable,"  Avhich 
led  him  into  extravagances  and  aberrations,  and  event- 
ually wrecked  the  life  which  should  have  been  valua- 
ble to  himself  and  his  contemporaries.  I  had  first 
become  aware  of  him  when  he  was  a  young  barrister 
in  Gray's  Inn,  and  when  he  wrote  in  F?-aser  a  noble 
article  on  that  great  Irish  scholar,  journalist,  and  wit, 
William  Maginn,  LL.D.  About  1848  or  1850,  Kenealy 
got  into  trouble  for  having  chastised,  with  reprehen- 
sible severity,  a  young  boy,  his  son.  The  matter  w^as 
settled  somehow  without  his  suffering  any  imprison- 
ment ;  and  as  time  wore  on  the  incident  w^as  forgotten, 
and  Keneal}^  did  his  utmost,  by  unflagging  industry, 
to  redeem  the  past.  He  rose  steadily  in  the  ranks  of 
his  profession,  became  a  Q.C.,  and  was  chosen  a 
Bencher  of  his  Inn,  one  of  the  Temples  I  should  say. 
It  happened,  however,  on  his  promotion  to  this  hon- 
ourable post,  that  some  evil-minded,  ill-conditioned, 
cantankerous,  and  of  course  anonymous,  scribbler, 
raked  up  the  old  story  of  his  having  mercilessly  beaten 
the  boy  at  his  chambers  in  Gray's  Inn.  I  took  up  the 
cudgels  in  defence  of  a  man  who  was  clearly  entitled 
to  claim  the  benefit  of  a  moral  Statute  of  Limitations; 
and  pointed  out  in  an  article  published  I  forget  where, 
how  much  the  new  Bencher  of  his  Inn  had  done,  not 
only  in  his  own  vocation,  but  by  his  brilliant  writings, 
to  increase  the  sum  of  knowledge  and  culture.  Kenealy 
expressed  himself  as  deeply  grateful  for  my  defence  of 
him  ;  and  he  sent   me  a  copy   of  a  work   he  had  just 


2l8  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


published,    entitled     "  Goethe  ;    a   new    Pantomime," 
which,  so  far  as  I   can  recollect,  was  a  violent  attack 
on  the  ethics  of  the  author  of  "  Faust."     On  the  title- 
page  of  his  book,  he  wrote  an  inscription  to  myself,  full 
of  flattering  expressions  ;  but  as  the  Claimant's  case 
wore  on,  and   Kenealy   had  accepted  the  position  of 
counsel   for  the    defence,  I    had    to   write    somewhat 
strongly  in  the   matter  in  the  Daily    Telegraph.      Dr. 
Kenealy  became  aware  that  I  was  the  writer  of  the 
articles ;  and  for  some  months  he  pursued  me,  when- 
ever he  had  the  chance,  with  the  most  virulent  abuse, 
his  favourite  allusion  to  me  being  to  call  me  "  Sala  the 
Spotted  Dog."     Why  he  should  have  coupled  me  with 
the   highly  respectable  tavern  in  question — which,  by 
the  way,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  I  never  set  foot 
in — troubles  my  comprehension  ;  but  in  all  probability 
he  confused  the  interesting  hotel  in  Holywell  Street, 
the    "  Old    Dog,"    with    the    "  Spotted  Dog "    in   the 
Strand  hard  by.     Abuse  never  ruffled  my  temper  for 
more  than  ten  minutes,  nor  did  me,  as  I  have  already 
hinted,  a  half-penny  worth  of  harm  ;  and  at  present  I 
can  vel-y  deeply  sympathise  with  Dr.  Kenealy 's  family  ; 
nor  have  I  lost  one  iota  of  my  thorough  appreciation 
for  his  great  natural  capacity,  and   his  equally  grand 
scholarly  attainments.     The   Tichborne   trial— I   have 
no  reason  to  believe  that  he  had  himself  the  slightest 
doubt  that  the  Claimant  was  really  Sir  Roger  Charles 
Tichborne — was  the  ruin  of  Edward  Kenealy.     His  in- 
temperate utterances  led  to  his  being  cashiered  as  a 
Bencher  of  his  Inn,  and  to   his  being  ultimately  dis- 
barred.    He  got  into  Parliament  for  some  borough  in 
the  Potteries,  and  it  should  not  be  forgotten,  as  an  il- 
lustration   of   the    singularly  noble  and  high-minded 
character  of  John   Bright,   that   when  the  new   M.P. 
came  to  the  table  to  be  sworn,  the  only  Member  who 
came  forward  to  act  as  his  sponsor  was  Mr.  Bright. 


COLLAPSE   OF  THE   CLAIMANT  219 

His  action  was,  I  take  it,  as  courageously  dignified  as 
that  of  Horace  Greeley  when  he  offered  to  stand  bail 
for  Jefferson  Davis. 

We  heard  the  last  of  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn's 
summing  up.  I  can  see  the  great  Judge  pushing  his 
wig  a  little  off  his  high  forehead,  when,  turning  to  the 
jury,  he  asked  them  with  just  a  tone  of  irony  in  his 
beautifully  musical  voice,  what  they  were  to  think 
of  a  defendant  who  did  not  even  know  the  name  of 
his  own  mother.  The  jury  retired.  I  have  not  the 
least  idea  as  to  the  length  of  time  they  were  absent 
from  the  court ;  but  I  remember  the  dead  silence 
which  all  at  once  succeeded  the  buzz  of  conversation 
when  the  "  twelve  honest  men  "  resumed  their  places. 
The  foreman  rose  and  read  their  finding  :  "  That  the 
defendant  did  falsely  swear  that  he  was  Roger  Charles 
Tichborne ;  that  he  seduced  Catherine  M.  N.  E. 
Doughty  in  185 1;  and  that  he  was  not  Arthur  Or- 
ton."  The  sentence,  which  was  one  of  fourteen  years' 
penal  servitude  —  seven  years  for  each  allegation  of 
perjury — was  not  pronounced  by  the  Lord  Chief  Jus- 
tice. That  task  fell  to  the  lot  of  Mr.  Justice  Lush,  a 
diminutive  Judge  with  a  somewhat  rosy  countenance. 
No  sooner  had  the  last  words  of  doom  fallen  from  the 
lips  of  Mr.  Justice  Lush  than  the  individuals  in  plain 
clothes,  whom  I  knew  to  be  police  officers,  quietly  en- 
vironed the  Claimant,  now  the  prisoner.  In  Ameri- 
can parlance,  they  "  froze  "  to  him,  and  as  they  dex- 
terously piloted  him  out  of  the  well  of  the  court,  he 
reminded  me  yet  more  strongly  of  the  dismasted 
hulk  of  an  old  line-of-battle  ship,  being  towed  by  a 
brace  of  smart  tugs  to  some  wharf,  there  to  have 
her  timbers  broken  up.  The  Claimant  was  to  be 
broken  up  very  small  indeed,  at  Dartmoor  or  some 
other  convict  prison,  where  he  was  to  be  delivered 
over  to  the  tormentors. 


220  LIFE  OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

The  Judges  tucked  up  their  skirts  and  departed  ; 
and  the  jury  dispersed  in  great  glee,  since  they  were 
informed  they  would  not  be  summoned  again  to  serve 
during  their  life-time.  Thus  ended  the  longest  trial 
ever  known  in  England.  Of  course  there  immediately 
ensued  a  violent  rush  out  of  court  for  luncheon.  Ed- 
ward Lawson  had  thoughtfully  provided  himself  with 
a  case  of  sandwiches  and  a  fiask  of  sherrv  ;  so  when 
the  tramping  and  scuffling  of  the  emerging  crowd  had 
somewhat  abated,  we  tranquilly  seated  ourselves  on 
the  stone  bench  running  round  the  central  lobby, 
whence  branched  the  two  lengthy  corridors  leading 
respectively  to  the  Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons. 
We  were  pleasantly  discussing  the  merits  of  chicken 
sandwiches  compared  with  others  made  from  pate  de 
foie  gras,  and  debating  whether  Vino  di  Pasto  was  a 
preferable  vintage  to  Amontillado,  when  to  our  sur- 
prise we  heard  a  loud,  resonant  noise  in  the  western 
corridor.  The  old  Law  Courts  were,  you  will  I'e- 
member,  on  the  side  of  Westminster  Hall  adjoining 
the  House  of  Lords.  What  did  that  noise  mean  ? 
1  remember  the  anecdote  of  the  death  of  Louis 
XV.,  out  of  whose  body  the  breath  had  scarcely  de- 
parted when  there  was  audible,  throughout  the  vast 
saloons  and  ante-chambers  of  the  Palace  of  Versailles, 
a  sound  as  of  thunder.  It  was  only  a  mob  of  cour- 
tiers hastening  from  the  bedside  of  the  dead  monarch 
to  pay  homage  to  the  new  King  and  Queen.  The 
central  lobby  might,  perhaps,  be  considered  as  the 
ivil  de  bccnf  of  the  Palace  of  Westminster ;  but  of  a 
surety  no  Louis  le  Bicn-Aime  had  just  expired.  Speed- 
ily did  we  become  cognisant  of  the  cause  of  that  noise 
in  the  western  corridor.  There  came  onwards,  with 
a  steady  swinging  tramp  along  the  marble  pavement, 
a  great  body  of  police-constables  ;  and  in  the  midst  of 
this  phalanx  walked   Castro,  or  Oi'ton,  or  "  the  Jab- 


COLLAPSE   OF   THE   CLAIMANT  221 

berwock,"  as  Shirley  Brooks  used  to  call  him :  bor- 
ro'wing  an  epithet  from  "  Alice  in  Wonderland."  He 
was  between  two  inspectors  in  plain  clothes,  but  I 
cannot  remember  whether  he  was  handcuffed.  That 
circumstance  does  not  matter  much.  As  he  passed 
me,  proceeding  towards  the  eastern  corridor,  he  gave 
me  one  look  of  recognition — a  look  which  I  shall  not 
forget  till  my  dying  day.  They  got  him  safely,  I  was 
afterwards  told,  into  the  courtyard  of  the  Speaker's 
house,  where  the  "■  Black  Maria "  was  waiting  for 
him.  The  Home  Secretary  of  the  day  was  Mr.  Cross, 
now  the  Right  Honourable  Viscount  Cross  :  and  this 
high  functionary  was,  I  understand,  strongly  in  fav- 
our of  the  bulky  captive  being  put  into  a  police- 
galley,  and  conveyed  to  Blackfriars  by  water,  thus 
avoiding  the  crowds  which  filled  Parliament  Street 
and  Whitehall ;  but  the  detective  department  under- 
took to  get  him  to  his  destination  without  any  fric- 
tion or  fuss.  They  just  put  him  into  the  van,  which 
was  driven  first  over  Westminster  Bridge,  and  then 
along  the  York  Road  and  Stamford  Street,  over 
Blackfriars  Bridge  into  Middlesex  again  ;  whence 
the  transit  to  Her  Majesty's  gaol  of  Newgate  was 
brief  and  easy. 


CHAPTER   LI 

TO   SPAIN   ONCE   MORE:   ALFONSO   XII 

The  year  1875  was  to  me  a  most  eventful  one,  and 
fruitful  in  adventure.  In  the  second  week  in  January 
I  made  my  second  journey  to  Spain.  A  journalistic 
colleague  of  mine  once,  I  believe,  either  wrote  a  book 
or  delivered  a  lecture  entitled  "  Monarchs  I  have 
Known  "  ;  or,  *'  Kings  I  have  Hobnobbed  with,"  or 
something  of  that  nature.  I  have  never  been  on  terms 
of  familiarity  with  Royalty  ;  yet  it  has  so  chanced  that 
I  have  been  acquainted  with  three  Kings  of  Spain — 
one  of  them  it  must  be  admitted  an  extremely  titular 
one.  Of  him  I  will  speak  first.  While  I  was  living  in 
Guildford  Street,  Russell  Square,  there  came  to  me 
one  forenoon  a  foreign  gentleman,  of  slight  stature  and 
dark  complexion,  who  brought  with  him  a  letter  of 
introduction  from  the  late  Mr.  Peter  LeNeve  Foster, 
then  secretary  of  the  Society  of  Arts.  At  the  same 
time  my  visitor  handed  me  his  card.  I  had  asked  him 
to  take  a  chair  ;  and  I  may  add  that  the  interview  took 
place  in  my  study  ;  that  I  was  clad  in  a  very  ragged 
silk  dressing-jacket,  and  that  I  was  smoking  a  short 
pipe. 

I  looked  at  the  card  and  found  that  it  bore  the  name 
of  some  Spanish  grandee — Conde  of  something  or  an- 
other. Would  I  look,  asked  the  foreign  gentleman,  at 
the  other  side  of  the  card  ?  1  turned  over  the  paste- 
board and  read  "  Don  Juan  de  Borbon."  Of  course  I 
stood  up  and   made    the  gravest  of  reverences.     My 


TO   SPAIN   ONCE   MORE  :    ALFONSO   XII  223 

interlocutor  was  the  son  of  Don  Carlos,  the  grandson 
of 'Ferdinand  VII.,  and  consequently  the  legitimate 
King  of  Spain ;  but  the  heir  to  a  phantom  crown  only 
smiled,  and  saying,  "  It  is  such  a  very  little  matter," 
made  me  resume  my  seat.  He  wanted  me  to  render 
him  some  newspaper  service  ;  and  I  was,  fortunately, 
able  to  meet  his  wishes.  After  that  he  used  to  call  on 
me  three  or  four  times  a  week,  and  talk  about  books, 
and  pictures,  and  photography — of  all  of  which  sub- 
jects he  had  considerable  knowledge.  In  politics  he 
seemed  to  me  to  be  a  thorough-going  Liberal  ;  and  fre- 
quently regretted  that  his  son,  Don  Carlos  Number 
Two,  who  signs  himself  Duke  of  Madrid,  and  pretends 
to  be  King  both  of  France  and  Spain,  had  been  brought 
up  by  the  Jesuits,  and  was  full  of  reactionary  tenden- 
cies. My  wife,  womanlike,  was  naturally  a  little 
pleased  that  I  should  be  visited  by  so  illustrious  a  per- 
sonage ;  and,  as  naturally,  she  told  her  maid  who  the 
little  dark  foreign  gentleman  was.  At  all  events,  com- 
ing home  to  dinner  one  evening,  I  asked  the  parlour- 
maid— "  Anybody  been  here  to-day,  Jane  ?  "  "  No, 
sir,"  she  replied  ;  "  only  that  King  s  been  bothering  here 
again!'  The  idea  of  a  King,  even  a  discrowned  one, 
bothering  anybody ! 

Ten  or  twelve  years  afterwards,  taking  my  annual 
holiday  at  Monte  Carlo,  I  had  a  constant  neighbour  at 
the  tables  in  the  shape  of  a  comely  gentleman  with  a 
full  glossy  beard,  who  apparently  had  scarcely  reached 
middle-age.  We  used  to  meet  not  only  at  the  Casino, 
but  on  the  terrace,  in  the  gardens  and  the  concert- 
room.  At  first  we  used  to  converse  in  French ;  but 
having  incidentally  remarked  one  day  that  I  could 
speak  Italian,  our  parley  was  thenceforth  in  the  Tus- 
can tongue.  I  had  not  the  slightest  idea  as  to  who  he 
was ;  and  if  I  hazarded  a  conjecture,  it  may  have  been 
that  he  was  either  an  operatic  singer,  or  a  secretary  of 


224  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


the  Italian  Embassy  at  Paris.     He  was  fonder  of  that 
gay  enchantress  roulette  than  of  the  austerer  trente-et- 
qiiarante ;  and  as  at  the  former  game  he  persistently 
backed   the    numbers— he   generally    lost   his   money. 
One  day,  however,  he  made  a  coup  ;  it  was  not  a  very 
large  one  :  only  thirty-five  five-franc  pieces,  which  he 
had  won  by  putting  a  single  piece  en  plein  on  the  num- 
ber mentioned.     As  he  laughingly  gathered  his  gains 
together — to    lose  them   five    minutes  afterwards — he 
showed  me  one  of  the  pieces,  saying,  "  I  think  that  I 
have  seen  that  face  before."     In  those  days  they  took 
all  kinds  of  money  at  the  Monte  Carlo  gambling  tables 
— French    and    Belgian   five-franc    pieces,    American, 
Mexican,   and    South    American    dollars,  and    Italian 
five-lire    pieces,   and    Greek    five-drachmas    ones.      I 
looked   at   the   piece  which   the   gentleman  with    the 
glossy  beard  had  handed  me.     It  was  a  Spanish  dollar  ; 
on  the  reverse  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  and  the  proud 
device,   ''Plus  ultra;''  on    the  obverse  the   profile  of 
the  comely  gentleman  with  the  glossy  beard,  with  the 
inscription,    "■  Amadco,    Rcy  de  Espana  y   de  las   Antil- 
las."'     Only  a  few  months  before  he  had  disdainfully 
refused  to  rule  any  more  over  a  people  who  hated  him 
because   he  was  an    cstranjcro,   and    who  insulted  his 
wife.     He  had  become  once  more  the  Italian  Duke  of 
Aosta.  , 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  deal  with  Spanish  Royalty 
Number  Three.  A  civil  war  was  raging  in  the  North 
of  Spain,  where  the  CarHsts  were  in  full  force.  By 
the  end  of  the  year  they  had  bombarded  Pampeluna, 
and  were  committing  shocking  barbarities  in  the  way 
of  devastating  whole  districts,  and  butchering  their 
prisoners  by  the  score.  Long  before.  Dona  Isabella 
de  Borbon,  forced  by  circumstances  over  which  she 
had  no  control  to  resign  her  crown,  abdicated  in  fa- 
vour of  her  son  Don  Alfonso,  then  a  cadet  at  our  mill- 


TO   SPAIN   ONCE   MORE:     ALFONSO   XII  225 


tary  college  at  Sandhurst.  In  December,  1874,  Mar- 
shal Serrano,  commanding  the  Loyalist  army  in  the 
north,  the  army  at  Murriedro  pronounced  in  favour  of 
Alfonso  ;  and,  on  the  29th  of  December,  the  youthful 
Prince  was  proclaimed  King  by  General  Martinez 
Campos  ;  he  was  again  proclaimed  by  General  Prime 
Da  Rivera,  at  Madrid.  At  once  m}^  friends  in  Fleet 
Street  gave  me,  what  in  journalistic  technology  is 
known  under  the  collective  term  of  a  "  travelling 
ticket  " — passport,  letters  of  introduction  to  influen- 
tial people,  letter  of  credit,  and  so  forth.  My  own 
travelling  equipment  I  always  kept  in  a  room  especi- 
ally set  aside  for  the  purpose ;  one  trunk  packed  with 
a  view  to  a  hot  climate,  the  other  to  serve  one's  need 
in  a  cold  one.  I  knew  the  winter  at  Madrid  to  be 
a  very  keen  one,  but  as  I  hoped  to  cross  the  Sierra 
Morena  and  go  south  before  I  returned,  I  provided 
myself  with  a  summer  as  well  as  a  winter  equip- 
ment. So  I  sped  to  Marseilles,  whence  I  took  a  Mes- 
sageries  steamer  for  Barcelona :  my  instructions  being 
to  reach  the  Spanish  capital  before  the  arrival  of  the 
new  King. 

As  I  anticipated,  the  weather  was  bitterly  cold  at 
Madrid  ;  and  a  walk  up  the  wide  and  windy  Calle  de 
Alcala  was  more  trying  even  than  the  perambulation 
in  the  month  of  January  of  the  Nevskoi  Perspektive  at 
St.  Petersburg  ;  since  the  Russian  cold  is,  if  1  may  so 
call  it,  a  non-tempestuous  and  almost  gentle  frigidity. 
You  have  onl}^  to  wrap  yourself  up  in  your  fur  skoiiba 
and  pull  the  wings  of  your  beaver  or  sealskin  cap  well 
over  your  ears,  and  you  will  scarcely  suffer  any  incon- 
venience ;  whereas  in  Madrid  there  blows  throughout 
the  winter  a  horrible  wind  from  the  Guadarana,  which 
seems  bent  on  cutting  your  throat,  and  makes  the  gen- 
eral temperature  so  penetrating  as  to  be  almost  un- 
bearable. It  is  a  crafty  wind,  moreover,  that  blows 
II.— IS 


226  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


without  making-  much  noise,   and   has  been  aptly  de- 
fined in  the  following  couplet — ■ 

"  El  aire  de  Madrid  es  tan  subtil, 
Que  mata  a  un  hombre  y  no  apaga  a  un  candil." 

"  The  air  of  Madrid  is  so  subtle  that  while  it  kills  a 
man  it  will  not  blow  out  a  candle." 

I  found  plenty  of  friends  in  the  capital ;  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  usual  crowd  of  "  mooners"  in  the  Puerta  del 
Sol,  clustered  round  the  fountain  ;  wearing  apparently 
the  same  ragged  cloaks  and  the  same  battered  slouched 
hats,  and  smoking  the   same  papclitos  which  they  had 
Avorn  and  smoked  when  I  first  knew  them,  ten  years 
before.     I    had   not    been   two  days  at  the  Fonda  de 
Paris,  or  the  Fonda  de  los  Principes — I  forget  which — 
when  I  received  a  visit  from  my  old  friend,  Colonel 
Howsomever  —  there  is  no  need   to  mention  his  real 
name — who  had  been  an  Anglo-Madrileno  ever  since 
the  time   when   Mr.   Henry   Bulwer,  afterwards  Lord 
Bailing,  had  been  Minister  at  the  Court  of  Queen  Isa- 
bella :  if  not  for  many  years  previous  to  that  period. 
We  used  to  call    him,  jocularly,   "  Colonel    Howsom- 
ever "  because  he  generally  began  conversation  with 
that   adverb,  and    as  plentifully   garnished  his  subse- 
quent utterances  with  it.     He  was  a  wonderful  story- 
teller ;  and  used  to  tell  an  extraordinary  yarn  of  hav- 
ing ridden  on  horseback   from    Madrid   to  Gibraltar, 
with  the  despatches  for  Sir  Robert  Wilson,  at  the  pe- 
riod when  that  distinguished  officer  was  Governor  of 
the  Rock.     "  You're  a  dead   man,  Colonel,"   was,  ac- 
cording to  his  showing,  the  Governor's  remark  when, 
with  his  saddle  under  one   arm,  and   his  bag  with  de- 
spatches under  the  other,  the  Colonel   presented   him- 
self at  Government   House,   the  Convent.     "  Pursued 
by  guerillas ;  all  but  captured  by  the  Carlists  ;  three 
horses  killed  under  you — you'll  never  get  over  it.  Col- 


TO   SPAIN   ONCE   MORE  :    ALFONSO   XII  22/ 

onel!"  "  Howsomever,"  added  His  Excellency,  "let 
him  have  a  warm  bath  and  a  bottle  of  champagne  im- 
mediately." 

He  was  equally  great  in  describing  the  attitude  of 
George  IV.,  when  the  news  arrived  of  the  surrender 
of  Napoleon  I.  to  Captain  Maitland,  on  board  the 
BelleropJion ;  only  it  is  but  justice  to  the  Colonel  to 
admit  that  he  did  not  claim  to  have  heard  the  Royal 
dicta  himself ;  but  said  that  they  were  transmitted  to 
him  by  his  worthy  father,  who  was  always  about  Carl- 
ton House.  "  Bonaparte  taken  !  "  the  First  Gentleman 
in  England  is  said  to  have  exclaimed,  "  Dash  my  wig, 
Colonel ! " — my  friend's  sire  must  likewise  have  held 
His  Majesty's  commission — "  What  are  we  to  do  with 
the  scoundrel?  "  "  Send  him  to  the  Tower  of  London, 
Sir."  "  The  Tower,  be  blowed  !  He  would  corrupt 
the  Beefeaters.  Howsomever,  we  will  pack  him  off  to 
St.  Helena."  What  Colonel  Howsomever  had  been 
doing  at  Madrid  all  these  years  I  never  had  any  means 
of  ascertaining.  I  heard  that  he  rendered  some  ser- 
vice to  the  English  colony  in  the  Spanish  capital 
by  successfully  negotiating  with  the  Government  for 
permission  to  establish  a  Protestant  cemetery  in  the 
suburbs.  Perhaps  he  was  employed  in  some  sub-dip- 
lomatic capacity,  and  had  a  small  income  from  the 
Secret  Service  Fund.  At  all  events,  he  was  a  kindly, 
courteous,  and  obliging  old  gentleman,  and  if  he  did 
draw  the  long-bow  occasionally,  the  shafts  which  he 
shot  never  did  anybody  the  slightest  harm.  He  was 
good  enough,  unasked,  to  get  me  elected  a  member  of 
the  principal  club ;  but  confessed  somewhat  ruefully 
that  he  had  been  occasionally  gently  reproached  by 
the  committee  for  introducing  so  many  of  his  English 
friends  as  candidates.  "  Howsomever,"  he  would  con- 
sole himself  by  remarking,  "  there's  a  rouge-et-noir  table 
in  one  of  the  rooms  of  the  club,  and  a  nionte  table  in 


228  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

another  ;  and  most  of  the  fellows  whom  I  have  intro- 
duced are  fond  of  sitting  up  gambling  till  three  in  the 
morning — which  is  good  for  the  club." 

To  my  great  joy,  I  found  dear  Antonio  Gallenga  in 
Madrid.  When  we  renewed  our  friendship  the  special 
correspondent  of  the  Times  must  have  passed  his  six- 
tieth year.  Was  there  ever  a  more  valiant  and  inde- 
fatigable journalist  and  litterateur  than  Antonio?  In 
the  interests  of  the  great  journal  of  Printing  House 
Square,  he  had  repeatedly  travelled  through  Spain  and 
Italy,  through  the  Spanish  Antilles  and  South  Amer- 
ica ;  and  he  had  been  in  the  United  States  when  the 
great  Republic  was  in  the  midst  of  war.  He  had  been 
a  Deputy  of  the  Italian  Parliament ;  he  had  been,  I 
fancy,  mixed  up  with  a  good  many  political  conspira- 
cies ;  and  in  addition  to  all  this,  he  had  led  two  lives; 
for  in  his  youth  he  had  been  a  teacher  of  languages  in 
England  under  the  novi  de  guerre  of  Luigi  Mariotti.  I 
picked  up  the  other  day,  at  a  second-hand  bookstall,  a 
copy  of  "  Mariotti 's  Italian- English  Grammar  "^ — ■ 
fifteenth  or  twentieth  edition.  Somebody  must  have 
made  a  mint  of  money  out  of  that  grammar.  I  was 
destined  to  meet  my  dear  friend  again  in  1877  at  Con- 
stantinople ;  and  I  rejoice  to  say  that,  although  in  his 
old  age  he  had  suffered  a  bitter  bereavement  in  the 
death,  by  a  cruel  accident,  of  his  beloved  and  accom- 
plished daughter,  he  still  lives,  a  substantial  country 
squire,  at  The  Falls,  near  Monmouth.  He  has  written  a 
small  library  of  books  of  travels,  and  of  political  essays. 
He  served  the  Times  for  a  quarter  of  a  centur}^,  and 
must  have  w^ritten  thousands  of  leaders  on  foreign 
subjects,  and  columns  of  special  correspondence  from 
abroad.  For  many  years  he  has  been  a  member  of  the 
Athenaeum  Club ;  and  yet  not  very  long  since,  when  I 
was  asked  by  the  pert  young  editor  of  a  w^eekly  paper 
to  give   him  a  list  of  eminent  journalists  whose  por- 


TO   SPAIN   ONCE   MORE  :     ALFONSO   XII  229 

traits  he  might  have  engraved,  and  I  mentioned  the 
name  of  Antonio  Gallenga  as  that  of  one  of  the  most 
gifted  and  most  distinguished  members  of  my  craft, 
the  pert  young  editor  stared  at  me,  and  said  that  he 
did  not  know  who  Antonio  Gallenga  was. 

Archibald  Forbes  had  come  out  as  representative  of 
the  Daily  Nczvs.  I  was,  at  that  time,  only  slightly 
acquainted  with  him  :  having  met  him  cursorily  at  a 
few  Volunteer  Reviews,  and  once  on  the  Ladies'  Lawn 
t)n  the  Cup  day  at  Goodwood.  He  had  already,  how- 
ever, achieved  European  fame,  by  the  splendid  ser- 
vices which  he  had  rendered  to  his  journal  in  the 
Franco-German  War ;  and  I  had  heard  much  of  the 
amiability  and  geniality  of  his  private  character  from 
Edmund  Yates,  who  had  been  intimately  associated 
with  him  at  the  Vienna  Exhibition.  Finally,  at  the 
house  of  Senor  Salamanca,  the  millionaire  banker,  I 
found  Mr.  Roger  Eykyn,  of  the  firm  of  Eykyn  Broth- 
ers, the  well-known  stockbrokers.  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  Roger  Eykyn  was,  to  all  appearance,  desperately 
ill  of  pleuro-pneumonia,  the  result,  I  should  say,  of  that 
detestably  insidious  Madrilefio  wind,  which  kills  men 
while  it  cannot  puff  out  a  candle. 

At  length  arrived  the  great  day  of  the  entrance  of 
young  King  Alfonso  into  the  capital  of  his  kingdom. 
He  had  been  received  with  rapturous  enthusiasm  at 
Barcelona  ;  but  the  haughty  Madrilenos  made  light  of 
that  incident.  "  The  Catalans  are  very  well,"  they  re- 
marked ;  "  but  they  are  not  Spaniards.  Madrid  es  sola 
Corte ;  it  is  the  Eye  of  Spain;  and  when  Don  Alfonso 
has  been  installed  at  the  Palacio  Real,  His  Majesty 
can  make  a  tour  through  Castile  and  Aragon,  and 
make  the  acquaintance  of  Juan  Espanol,  the  real  Span- 
iard." The  entire  city  was  decorated  in  profusion 
with  the  national  colours ;  and  the  grandees  followed 
the  picturesque  Latin  custom  of  hanging  out  their  car- 


230  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

pets  from  their  windows.  One  possessor  of  the  sangre 
aznl — the  Duke  of  Medina  Sidonia,  I  think — displayed 
his  ancestral  tapestries,  which  had  been  woven,  in- 
deed, in  Flemish  looms  from  the  cartoons  of  Raffaelle. 
For  once  the  "  mooners  "  evacuated  the  Puerta  del 
Sol  ;  and  in  their  stead  the  great  Place  was  crammed 
with  a  multitude  of  people  of  all  sorts  and  conditions, 
including-  large  bodies  of  peasantry,  who  had  come  up 
by  rail  to  see  the  show,  and  who,  in  most  instances, 
were  clad  in  the  picturesque  national  costume.  The 
day  fortunately,  although  cold,  was  an  extremely  fine 
one.  The  military  cavalcade  was  splendid  ;  and  it  cul- 
minated in  the  appearance  of  the  King,  who,  while  the 
cannon  thundered,  and  the  bells  of  all  the  churches 
were  ringing  joyful  peals,  rode,  mounted  on  a  superb 
charger,  into  the  Puerta  del  Sol.  The  sun's  rays 
caught  the  leaping  waters  of  the  fountain,  and  there 
was  a  great  shout  from  the  crowd  of  "  Mira  clfiic7tte  !  " 
followed  by  another  cry,  which  to  me,  for  the  moment, 
was  a  little  perplexing :  "  Es  Jiijo  de  su  madi'e !  "  Es 
hijo  de  sji  madre  !  was  repeated  over  and  over  again, 
from  one  end  of  the  Plaza  to  the  other.  I  was  subse- 
quently made  to  understand  that  the  remark  made 
was  a  proverbial  one  ;  and  that  it  implied  that  there 
could  be  no  rational  doubt  that  the  young  Don  Alfonso 
was  the  son  of  Dona  Isabella  de  Borbon — it  being  a 
matter  of  comparative  indifference  as  to  who  his  papa 
may  have  been. 

On  the  day  following  the  Royal  entry,  Antonio  Gal- 
lenga  and  I  went  to  Court.  Unless  you  have  naval  or 
military  rank,  or  belong  to  the  diplomatic  service,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  assume  any  kind  of  Court  dress,  when 
you  wait  upon  a  Majesty  of  Spain  at  an  ordinary  re- 
ception. You  are  simply  bound  to  don  ordinary 
evening  attire  and  a  white  cravat ;  white  kid  gloves 
are  also  considered  de  rigiieur.     I  think  Gallenga  had 


TO   SPAIN   ONCE   MORE  :    ALFONSO   XII  23I 

some  difficulty  about  buttoning  his  gloves,  of  which 
he  split  at  least  three  pairs  before  we  reached  the 
Palace.  In  any  case  he  was  in  a  very  ill  temper  when 
we  arrived  there  ;  and  when  we  had  passed  the  hal- 
berdiers in  the  marble  vestibule,  and  had  ascended  the 
grand  staircase  to  the  landing,  which  is  adorned  with 
two  enormous  Venetian  mirrors,  my  colleague,  still 
struggling  with  a  refractory  white  kid,  first  scanned 
himself  in  the  glass,  then  looked  at  me,  and  observed 
in  an  accent  in  which  facetiovisness  was  mingled  with 
ferocity,  "  By  Jove,  we  are  two  dashed  ugly  fellows." 
"  Speak  for  3^ourself,  brother,"  I  replied.  Of  my  own 
facial  shortcomings,  I  have  been  long  and  good- 
humouredly  aware.  We  were  playing  once  at  Pope's 
Villa,  Twickenham,  a  game  of  similitudes,  at  which  all 
the  players  had  in  succession  to  name  the  animal 
which  his  or  her  neighbour  was  like  ;  and  the  verdict 
of  the  majority  decided  whether  the  similitude  was 
accurate  or  the  contrary.  The  lady  who  had  to  reck- 
on me  up,  took  some  time  to  examine  my  countenance  ; 
and  at  last  said,  rather  hesitatingly,  that  I  reminded 
her  of  a  baked  bull-dog ;  but  I  am  glad  to  say  that  her 
summing-up  was  not  endorsed  by  the  majority  of  the 
ladies  and  gentlemen  present,  who  agreed  that  I  more 
closely  resembled  a  seal. 

The  vouns:  Kins:  was  to  leave  Madrid  almost  imme- 
diately  for  Zaragoza,  where  he  was  to  review  a  large 
body  of  troops ;  and  then  he  was  to  march  at  the  head 
of  his  army  to  raise  the  siege  of  Pampeluna,  which  for 
many  weeks  had  been  held  by  the  Carlists.  We  cor- 
respondents were  in  a  state  of  great  perturbation  as  to 
the  day  and  hour  of  the  Royal  setting  forth  ;  but  at 
length  I  was  able  to  tell  them,  "  from  information 
which  I  had  received,"  that  the  King  would  lenve  at 
seven  on  a  given  morning  by  special  train  ;  by  which, 
however,  in  addition  to  His  Majesty  and  his  staff,  only 


232  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

persons  connected  with  the  Court  would  be  allowed 
to  travel.  There  was  to  be  an  ordinary  express  leav- 
ing at  six  o'clock  ;  and  by  that  the  representatives  of 
the  English  press  agreed,  not  without  some  sullenness, 
that  they  would  journey  to  Zaragoza.  As  it  turned 
out,  my  colleagues  did  get  to  the  city  in  question  be- 
fore I  did  ;  but  somehow,  in  the  way  of  "  seeing  the 
show,"  I  fared  better  than  they  did.  Late  in  the  even- 
ing, kind  Roger  Eykyn,  who  was  rapidly  approaching 
convalescence,  sent  for  me,  and  told  me  that  Senor 
Salamanca,  who  was  to  have  accompanied  the  King, 
had  been  called  away  by  most  important  business  to 
Seville  ;  but  that  he  had  placed  his  own  private  saloon- 
carriage  at  the  disposal  of  Gallenga  and  myself.  Even- 
ing dress  was  indispensable,  "  But  mind,"  added  Roger 
Eykyn,  "  take  your  thickest  great  coat  and  plenty  of 
railway  rugs  with  you." 

One  did  not  mind  rising  at  six  in  the  morninof  •  break- 
fasting  on  the  eternal  cup  of  chocolate  without  milk, 
and  the  greasy  slice  of  something  which  was  half  bread 
and  half  pastry  ;  and  dressing  by  candle-light  in  a  big, 
comfortless  bedroom,  imperfectly  heated  by  a  brasero 
or  pan  of  incandescent  charcoal  ashes :  the  carbonic 
acid  gas  evolved  from  which  is  "killed"  by  oil  or  by 
the  lees  of  wine.  We  drove  to  the  terminus  ;  and  fort- 
unately there  was  nothing  the  matter  that  morning 
with  Antonio's  white  kid  gloves.  The  platform  was 
crowded  ;  naturally  there  was  a  bishop  with  all  his 
clergy  ready  in  waiting  to  give  the  )^oung  Sovereign 
his  benediction ;  and  then  the  King  was  effusively 
greeted  by  several  ladies  of  the  highest  rank,  all,  of 
course,  wearing  the  national  mantilla.  The  queerest 
incident  occurred  just  as  the  King  was  entering  his 
saloon.  An  old  man,  bent  nearly  double,  leaning  on  a 
staff,  and  dressed  in  the  most  astonishing  conglomera- 
tion of  rags  and  tatters  that  ever  I  beheld,  hobbled  up 


TO    SPAIN   ONCE   MORE  :    ALFONSO   XII  233 

to  the  door  of  the  Royal  carriage,  and  extending  one 
attenuated  and  skinny  palm,  begged.  Yes,  begged  I 
No  Giiardia  Civil  collared  the  audacious  mendicant ; 
no  aide-de-camp  drew  his  sword  to  punish  the  shameless 
tatterdemalion.  Everybody  seemed  to  take  the  thing 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  and  the  King  laughinglj^ 
gave  Lazarus  something,  I  asked  him  how  he  had 
dared  to  approach  the  Sovereign  and  solicit  alms  from 
him.  He  tried  to  draw  himself  up  to  his  full  height ; 
he  surveyed  me  with  an  air  of  wrathful  dignity,  and  he 
replied  that  things  were  going  "  miiy  inal  a  casa  " — that 
things  were  going  very  badly  at  home. 

Senor  Salamanca's  saloon-carriage  proved  to  be  a 
most  sumptuous  conveyance.  In  addition  to  the  saloon 
there  were  two  handsomely  furnished  bedrooms,  a 
comfortable  dining-room,  and  an  elegant  boudoir. 
There  were  plenty  of  mirrors  in  massive  gold  frames, 
and  gorgeously  upholstered  chairs  and  sofas ;  and  in 
particular  there  were  console  tables,  and  at  least  five- 
and-twenty  Avax  tapers  in  massive  gilt  candelabra.  We 
reached  Zaragoza  in  time  for  lunch,  which  was  pro- 
vided for  the  King  and  all  his  suite,  including  ourselves, 
at  the  municipal  palace  ;  all  the  livery  stable-keepers 
in  the  city  had  been  laid  under  contribution  to  supply 
conveyances  for  the  visitors  coming  with  His  Majesty  ; 
and  a  barouche  with  a  pair  of  Avhite  horses  had  been 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  occupants  of  Senor  Sala- 
manca's saloon  carriage.  Very  cheerfully,  after  we 
had  partaken  of  a  bounteous  repast,  moistened  with 
some  excellent  champagne,  we  drove  down  to  the 
Fonda,  which  had  been  agreed  upon  as  a  rendezvous  for 
ourselves  and  our  colleagues.  We  found  them  sitting 
over  the  national  dish,  ptteJiero — fresh  boiled  beef — ac- 
commodated with  garlic  and  other  vegetables,  among 
\^\\\c\\  garbanzos,  or  chick  pease,  predominated.  They 
could  get  nothing  to  drink  but  Val  de  Penas ;  and,  on 


234  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

the  whole,  I  do  not  think  that  they  received  us  with 
any  exceptional  cordiality.  They  had,  in  truth,  arrived 
five-and-twcnty  minutes  before  the  Royal  train ;  but 
there  were  no  cabs  to  be  had  at  the  Zaragoza  Station ; 
and  they  had  been  fain  to  walk  through  the  snow  to 
the  Fonda,  where  their  demands  for  luncheon  had  been 
met  by  the  reply  commonly  used  by  Spanish  hotel- 
keepers  in  the  provinces,  no  hay  nada.  Whether  Archi- 
bald Forbes  had  to  produce  his  revolver  before  the  inn- 
keeper would  consent  to  supply  piicJiero  for  six,  I  did 
not  learn.  They  fancied  that  Antonio  and  I  had  lost 
the  train  ;  and  received,  not  precisely  with  good  grace, 
the  tidings  that  we  had  not  only  witnessed  the  de- 
parture of  the  King  from  the  Madrid  terminus,  but  had 
been  allowed  to  couple  Senor  Salamanca's  saloon-car- 
riage to  the  Royal  train. 

But  man  should  never  boast  of  good  fortune.  For 
aught  he  can  tell,  when  he  deems  himself  most  felici- 
tous ill-luck  is  dogging  his  footsteps,  and,  in  a  moment, 
may  spring  upon  him.  The  train  halted  at  a  town 
called  Alhama  de  Aragon,  which,  in  summer  time,  I 
believe,  is  an  inland  watering-place,  extensively  pat- 
ronised by  the  flower  of  Madrid  society.  On  the  14th 
of  January,  however,  its  leafless  trees  and  blast-swept 
garden  walks  presented  a  most  woe-begone  appear- 
ance. The  train  was  to  stop,  we  were  told,  twenty 
minutes  ;  and,  after  a  brief  stroll,  timing  ourselves  by 
our  watches  from  five  minutes  to  five  minutes,  we  re- 
turned to  the  station,  out  of  which,  to  our  horror,  the 
Royal  train  was  just  moving  ;  while,  to  add  to  our  dis- 
comfiture, the  station-master  politely  informed  us  that 
there  would  not  be  any  more  ordinary  trains  passing 
through  until  the  next  morning.  This  did  not  matter 
to  our  colleagues,  who  had  not  intended  to  go  any  fur- 
ther than  Zaragoza  ;  but  to  us  who  wished  to  accom- 
plish another  day's  journey  with  the  King,  the  mishap 


TO   SPAIN   ONCE   MORE:     ALFONSO   XII  235 


was  almost  tantamount  to  journalistic  death.  The 
station-master  pondered  ;  he  was,  under  the  circum- 
stances, as  polite  as  a  French  cJief  de  gare  would  have 
been  rude.  At  length  he  was  able  to  tell  us  that  a 
train  full  of  troops  would  be  going  through  in  about 
two  hours,  that  he  would  wire  for  this  train  to  be 
stopped  at  Alhama  de  Aragon  ;  and  that  he  had  no 
doubt  the  officer  in  command  of  the  military  would 
allow  us  to  take  passage  with  them.  In  due  time  this 
train  in  question  drew  up  to  the  platform,  and  we 
reached  our  destination  where  the  King  was  to  pass 
the  night.  We  were  unmercifully  chaffed  by  some  of 
the  officers  of  the  Royal  staff ;  but  we  contented  our- 
selves with  expressing  the  wish  that  everybody  might 
live  a  thousand  years  ;  and  so  papclitos  were  handed 
round,  and  cups  of  black  coffee,  and  everything  went 
merry  as  a  marriage  bell.  Gallenga  and  I  slept  each 
in  our  well-appointed  bedroom.  We  laughed  heartily 
when,  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  train  resumed 
its  march,  at  the  trifling  misadventure  which  had  oc- 
curred to  us  on  the  preceding  day. 

Woe  is  me  ! — worse,  much  worse  was  to  come.  The 
cold  during  the  night  had  been  intense  ;  the  water  in 
the  cabinet  de  toilette  was  frozen  as  hard  as  a  stone,  and 
there  we  were  in  evening  dress,  with  a  good  deal  of 
coal  dust  on  our  white  shirt-fronts  and  cravats,  and 
with  our  faces  and  hands  in  a  general  condition  of 
griminess.  To  make  matters  worse,  at  half-past  nine 
one  of  the  Royal  aides-de-camp  made  his  appearance  at 
the  door  of  our  saloon  with  a  gracious  invitation  from 
His  Majesty  to  breakfast  with  him  at  ten  a.m.  What 
was  to  be  done  ?  To  put  the  matter  as  mildly  as  pos- 
sible, Antonio  Gallenga,  Esq.,  and  your  humble  ser- 
vant looked  a  great  deal  more  like  two  sweeps  than 
two  reputable  journalists.  We  did  not  p4-esume,  while 
accepting  the  invitation  of  His  Majesty,  to  ask  for  a 


2T,6  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


basin  of  hot  water  from  the  kitchen  of  the  Royal  train. 
Archibald  Forbes,  I  feel  confident,  would  have  asked 
for  a  o-allon  at  once  ;  but  we  had  not  sufficient  muscle 
of  mind  to  proffer  such  a  request.  What,  we  repeated, 
was  to  be  done  ?  I  remember  once  at  a  gala-day  at  the 
Crystal  Palace,  and  after  a  very  hard  day's  work,  being 
suddenly  pounced  upon  by  a  friend,  who  told  me  that 
I  was  to  join,  then  and  there,  a  dinner-party,  given  by 
some  Brahminical  personage,  whom  my  friend  defined 
as  a  "  howling  swell."  I  said  I  should  be  very  glad  to 
avail  myself  of  the  invitation  ;  and  only  asked  for  a  few 
minutes'  time  to  wash  my  hands.  "  Oh,  bother  your 
hands  !  "  exclaimed  my  friend,  who  was  rather  of  an 
impetuous  temperament ;  "  come  along  at  once  ;  "  and 
he  literally  dragged  me  away  to  the  hospitable  board 
of  the  howling  swell  aforesaid.  Fortunately,  when  I 
took  my  seat  I  descried  by  the  side  of  my  plate  a 
beautifully  crusty  loaf,  of  Viennese  make.  I  seized 
the  precious  bread,  and,  remembering  that  when  Mo- 
hammedan pilgrims  in  the  desert  are  unable  to  find 
water  they  perform  their  ablutions  with  sand,  I  slipped 
my  hands  under  the  tablecloth  and  practically  washed 
my  hands  with  the  nice,  ffesh  bread.  But  in  that 
abode  of  splendid  misery,  Seiior  Salamanca's  saloon- 
carriage,  there  was  not  a  crumb  of  bread. 

Suddenly  a  happy  thought  seemed  to  have  struck 
Gallenga.  "  Did  you  ever  try  candles  ? "  he  asked. 
"  Candles  for  what?"  I  repeated  in  amazement.  "  Why, 
to  wash  with,"  he  replied ;  and,  suiting  the  action  to 
the  words,  he  took  one  of  the  vSalamanca  wax  candles 
from  its  gilt  metal  socket  and  gravely  proceeded  to 
roll  the  taper  backwards  and  forwards  over  his  face 
and  hands.  I  followed  his  example,  and  I  believe  that, 
with  the  aid  of  a  couple  of  waxen  cylinders,  we  did 
manage  to  get  off  a  considerable  quantity  of  our  grimi- 
ness,  and  even  to  endue  our  skin  with  a  slight  veneer 


TO   SPAIN   ONCE   MORE:    ALFONSO   XII  237 

of  wax.  At  all  events,  we  did  the  best  we  could  with 
the  Bry  polish.  Then  we  entered  the  Royal  saloon  ; 
were  most  graciously  received  by  His  Majesty,  and 
partook  of  a  truly  Royal  breakfast.  The  condition  of 
our  complexions  did  not  excite  the  slightest  notice  ; 
for,  during  the  meal  everybody  was  fully  occupied 
with  his  knife  and  fork ;  and,  directly  breakfast  was 
over,  the  saloon  was  filled  with  a  blue  haze,  emitted 
from  some  thirty  lighted  Havanas  2ind  papelitos.  But, 
as  the  temperature  grew  gradually  warmer  and 
warmer,  "  Tears,  such  as  Tender  Fathers  Shed,"  began 
to  trickle  down  my  face :  the  thin  veneer  of  wax  had 
melted.  I  have  never  had  occasion  since  then  to  try 
candles  as  a  means  of  washing;  still,  Gallenga's  device 
w^as  certainly  an  ingenious  one,  and  may  be  found 
worthy  the  attention  of  travellers  placed  in  the  pre- 
dicament in  which  we  were. 


CHAPTER    LII 

DOWN   SOUTH 

At  some  town,  the  name  of  which  I  forget,  we  left  the 
Royal  train  about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  I  had 
no  instructions  to  describe  the  siege  of  Pampeluna ; 
and  thenceforward,  I  was  to  have  for  six  weeks  longer, 
a  free  hand  in  the  way  of  my  wanderings.  So  I  thought 
that  1  would  return  to  Barcelona,  of  which  I  had  seen 
but  little  when  I  landed  there,  and  explore  that  large 
and  most  interesting  city.  After  two  or  three  days' 
strolling  about  the  Rambla  and  visiting  the  two  prodig- 
iously spacious  theatres,  I  bade  farewell  to  Gallenga, 
who  was  returning  to  England,  and  took  the  train  for 
Madrid.  It  was  not  an  express,  but  a  train  with  first, 
second,  and  third  class  passengers.  I  started  at  the 
usual  unholy  hour  of  seven  in  the  morning  ;  when,  just 
as  we  were  entering  a  deep  cutting,  the  train  slack- 
ened speed  ;  and,  to  our  extreme  uneasiness,  we  could 
hear  the  repeated  discharges  of  rifles,  and  a  pattering 
of  bullets  against  the  side  of  the  carriage.  At  once  I 
stood  up  on  the  seat ;  and  bade  the  only  other  occu- 
pant of  the  compartment  to  do  likewise.  I  knew  that 
the  M.Qy.\c?in  giicrrilleros,  when  they  fire  into  a  carriage, 
always  aim  low  when  they  wish  to  maim  the  passengers 
and  not  to  kill.  My  companion,  who  sat  opposite  to 
me,  told  me  that  he  was  a  silversmith  in  a  large  way  of 
business  at  Barcelona ;  and  the  number  of  patens, 
chalices,  and  candlesticks,  and  silver  which  that  worthy 
tradesman  vowed  to  the  Virgin,  and  to  a  whole  host  of 
saints   during    that   extremely    mauvais   quart   dlieurc. 


DOWN   SOUTH  239 


passes  my  power  of  computation.  I  heard  him  mur- 
muring also  to  himself,  "  To  die  so  young,  to  leave  my 
wife  and  babes.  Oh  !  it  is  sad,  it  is  sad  ;  and  I  haven  t 
even  had  my  breakfast ^ 

In  a  short  time  the  train  came  to  a  dead  stop  ;  and  we 
could  see  the  sides  of  the  cutting  swarming  with  armed 
men,  who,  from  the  red  caps,  or  cJiapelgorris — the  word 
is  Basque,  I  believe — which  they  wore,  we  knew,  at 
once,  to  be  Carlists.  The  door  of  our  compartment 
was  opened  ;  and  the  conductor  of  the  train  made  his 
appearance,  accompanied  by  a  tall  man  in  a  chapclgorri, 
whom,  from  a  sabre  at  his  belt,  I  took  to  be  the  com- 
mander of  the  Carlist  band.  He  straightway  hauled 
the  Barcelona  silversmith  out  of  the  carriage,  and 
handed  him  over  to  two  of  his  men,  who  proceeded  to 
relieve  him  of  his  purse  and  his  watch.  They  only 
exacted,  however,  from  him  five  gold  Isabelinos — a 
sum  equivalent  to  about  five  pounds  sterling — and  then 
the  tall  man  with  the  sabre  at  his  belt  asked  me  in 
Spanish  who  was  my  King.  I  heard  the  conductor  say 
to  him,  in  an  under  tone,  that  I  was  nn  estra)ijcro,  a  for- 
eigner ;  but  on  my  remaining  mute  he  repeated  his 
question  more  sternly,  adding,  "  Carlos  or  Alfonso, 
which  ?  "  I  rose  ;  made  him  a  low  bow  ;  and  replied 
in  the  best  Castilian  that  I  could  muster,  that  my  King 
was  Her  Most  Gracious  Majesty,  Queen  Victoria,  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  Defender  of  the  Faith, 
whom  might  God  long  preserve  ;  and  then  I  offered 
him  a  cigar — a  real  Havana,  which  is  a  rarity  in  Old 
Spain.  Once  more  I  heard  the  conductor  mutter  to 
the  Carlist  chief  that  I  was  an  Englishman,  and  7in  poco 
loco — all  Englishmen,  he  was  so  obliging  as  to  say,  were 
a  little  mad.  Whereupon  the  man  with  the  sabre 
shrugged  his  shoulders;  smiled  grimly;  lighted  my 
Havana,  and  departed.  The  conductor,  when  the 
train  was  allowed  to  proceed,  told  me  that  the  remain- 


240  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


der  of  the  passengers  had  not  been  so  lucky  as  to  get 
off  scot  free  as  I  had  done ;  the  Carlists  having  exacted 
five  Isabelinos  from  every  first-class  passenger ;  ten 
dollars  from  every  second-class  one,  and,  from  the 
third-class,  anything  they  could  get — cabbages,  onions, 
and  other  garden  produce  ;  tobacco,  a  silver  peseta 
now  and  again,  and  a  considerable  quantity  of  copper 
money. 

At  the  next  stopping  place,  which  fortunately  was  a 
garrison  town,  we  took  on  board  a  body  of  sixty  infan- 
try of  the  Line.  We  travelled  all  night ;  but  the  next 
morning,  between  eight  and  nine,  the  train  was  again 
surrounded  by  another  band  of  Carlists,  who  began 
firing  upon  us.  The  tables  were  at  once  turned  ; 
and  with  a  vengeance.  Our  military  escort  returned 
the  fire  of  the  insurgents ;  and  then,  sallying  forth 
from  the  train,  they  charged  the  marauders  with  fixed 
bayonets  ;  and  the  adherents  of  the  elder  branch  of 
the  Spanish  Bourbons  being  completely  routed,  igno- 
miniously  took  to  flight.  They  left  a  few  wounded 
behind  them,  and  the  soldiers  took  about  half-a-dozen 
prisoners.  I  hope  that  the  wounded  were  removed  to 
some  neighbouring  hospital  or  monastery  for  medical 
treatment ;  but  I  know  and  remember  with  awful  dis- 
tinctness that  the  prisoners  were  all  shot,  and  that 
their  corpses  were  hung  i7i  terrorem  to  the  telegraph 
poles.  A  la  guerre  comvie  a  la  gncrre.  When  the 
French  were  in  Mexico  they  used,  after  shooting  the 
guerrilleros  whom  they  captured,  to  cut  off  their  right 
hands,  which  they  nailed  to  the  telegraph  poles. 
Swollen  and  blackened  by  the  heat  these  severed 
hands  presented  a  sufficiently  ghastly  appearance. 

There  was  nothing  to  detain  me  in  Madrid,  save  to 
pay  a  few  more  visits  to  the  magnificent  museum  of 
pictures,  and  the  equally  splendid  armoury.  I  went 
to  the  Opera  two  or  three  times,  and  to  a  number  of 


DOWN   SOUTH  241 


minor  theatres,  where  the  staples  of  entertainment  are 
zarsuclas  and  saynetes,  corresponding  with  the  French 
operas  boiiffes  ;  then  I  wended  my  way,  without  further 
adventure,  over  the  Brown  Mountains  down  to  Cor- 
dova and  Seville,  and  other  cities  of  interest  in  the 
south.  I  saw  another  carnival  at  Cordova ;  and  my 
guide  to  the  inner  mysteries  of  the  festival  was  a  most 
intelligent  and  good-natured  Englishman,  who  I  am 
afraid  has  joined  the  majority.  It  was  Sir  Henry 
Layard,  who  in  1875  was  Her  Britannic  Majesty's  Min- 
ister at  Madrid,  who  gave  me  a  letter  of  introduction 
to  the  gentleman  in  question,  who  was  known  as  Don 
Juan  Rutledge,  and  was  traffic  manager  on  the  South- 
ern line  of  railway.  From  Cordova  I  went  to  Seville, 
and  thence  to  the  Nave  de  Piedra,  or  Ship  of  Stone — 
the  title  which  the  Andalusians  give  to  the  delightful 
city  of  Cadiz.  , 

At  the  table  d'hote  of  the  principal  fonda  of  the  city 
immortalised  by  Byron  in  "  Don  Juan,"  I  made  a 
transitory  but  altogether  amusing  acquaintance.  My 
opposite  neighbour  at  luncheon  and  dinner  was  a 
chubby  little  boy,  who,  I  should  say,  was  about  five 
years  of  age.  He  had,  strange  for  a  Spaniard,  a  fair 
complexion,  large  blue  eyes,  and  auburn  hair,  which 
curled  like  the  young  tendrils  of  the  vine.  "  He  is  a 
Goth,"  whispered  my  next-door  neighbour.  "  Sit  with 
me  at  any  mesa  franca  throughout  Spain,  and  I  will 
point  out  to  you,  quite  apart  from  the  foreign  guests, 
three  races  of  Spaniards — the  old  Iberian,  the  Arab, 
and  the  Gothic."  The  little  fellow  opposite  invariably 
wore  a  huge  coach-wheel  hat,  profusely  adorned  with 
white  ostrich  feathers.  A  servant  in  livery  stood  be- 
hind his  chair ;  on  his  right  was  a  major-domo,  in 
dignified  black,  with  a  silver  chain  round  his  neck  ;  to 
his  left  was  a  matronly  female,  also  in  black,  who 
was  the  child's  ajua,  or  waiting  gentlewoman — a  do- 
II. — 16 


242  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


mestic  whom  English  people  often  erroneously  call  a 

duenna. 

The  small  party  in  the  prodigious  hat  and  feathers, 
after  staring  at  me  intently  for  two  or  three  evenings, 
began  to  be  very  friendly.      "  Vo  soy  Bon  Ar^uro,"  he 
said,  emphasising  the  rarely  used   personal  pronoun  : 
"  Vo  soy  Don  Arturo  ;    V  Tii  ?  "     All  the  company  burst 
out  laughing  at  this,   which  tickled    me    immensely  ; 
and  they  laughed  louder  when  I  told  him  that  I  was 
Don  Jorge   Augusto  Enrique,  and  that   I   kissed  his 
hands  and  feet.     That  evening  I  went  to  the  theatre ; 
and  in  a  private  box  on  the  pit-tier  was  the  little  dar- 
ling in  the  hat  and  feathers,  attended  as  usual  by  his 
major-domo,  his  ama,  and  his  liveried  lacquey.     I  was 
in  the  stalls,  he  beckoned  to  me,  and  for  some  time  was 
most  affable  in   his  artless  conversation  ;  but,  after  a 
while,  I  fancy  he  had  enough  of  me,  for  he  had  fixed 
his  eyes  on  a  ragged  little  urchin  about  ten,  who  was 
in    the    pit,    where    there    was   only   standing-room. 
Nothing  could  please  him,  till  the  footman  went  ana 
fetched  the  ragged,  unwashed  boy,  who  was  not,  how- 
ever, for  easily  comprehensible  reasons,  permitted  to 
enter  the  box.     The  tiny  hidalgo   contented   himself 
with  leaning  over  and  stroking  and  patting  the  urchin's 
most  suspicious-looking  head.     He  subsequently  pre- 
sented him  with  a  dollar  ;  and  the  unwashed  boy  went 
away  rejoicing. 

I  only  saw  my  affable  young  friend  once  more.  I  was 
on  my  way  to  Granada ;  and  on  the  train  halting  for  a 
few  minutes  at  some  station,  I  became  aware  of  the 
diminutive  hidalgo,  attended  as  usual  by  his  suite,  but 
tranquilly  reposing  in  the  arms  of  a  railway  porter, 
who  was  apparently  delighted  with  his  young  burden, 
and  whose  head  the  child  from  time  to  time  affection- 
ately patted.  He  had  a  passion,  I  should  say,  for  strok- 
ing people's  heads,  and  was  not  very  particular  in  his 


DOWN   SOUTH  243 


choice.  The  footman  hurriedly  advanced  to  say  that 
the  carriage  was  waiting ;  so  away  they  carried  Don 
Arturo,  who,  I  hope,  was  conveyed  in  a  coach  drawn 
by  six  fat  mules  to  his  ancestral  castle.  When  the 
porter  came  back,  I  asked  him  who  Don  x\rturo  was. 
"  Who  is  he?  "  echoed  the  porter,  "  who  should  he  be, 
but  the  Lord  of  all  the  orange  groves  of  Bobadilla." 
But  the  train  started ;  and  I  had  no  time  to  ask 
whether  of  Bobadilla  Don  Arturo  was  the  Duke,  the 
Marquis,  or  the  Count. 

I  went  to  Granada  ;  renewed  my  acquaintance  with 
the  Alhambra  ;  then  took  a  trip  to  Valencia  ;  returned 
to  Cadiz,  and  thence  took  steamer  for  Gibraltar,  where 
I  enjoyed  the  customary  cordial  welcome  from  many 
of  the  officers  in  garrison. 

A  queer  place,  Gibraltar!  My  stay  there  in  1875 
was  marked  by  a  sufficiently  droll  incident.  On  the 
15th  of  April,  H.M.  steamship  Scrapis  put  into  Gib- 
raltar, having  on  board  His  Royal  Highness  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  and  a  numerous  suite,  including  an  additional 
private  secretary.  Dr.  W.  H.  Russell.  In  her  wake 
there  was  another  steamship,  on  board  of  which  were 
several  of  my  journalistic  colleagues,  who  had  accom- 
panied His  Royal  Highness  on  his  tour  to  India. 
Among  these  were  Archibald  Forbes  for  the  Daily 
Nczvs,  and  George  Henty  for  the  Standard,  while  the 
Daily  Telegraph  was  represented  by  Mr.  Drew  Gay. 
A  satirical  journal  called  El  Mono  (The  Monkey),  pub- 
lished at  Gibraltar,  in  commenting  on  the  joyful  event 
of  the  Heir  to  the  Crown  being  in  Anglo-Spanish 
waters,  incidentally  remarked  that  there  was  one  drop 
of  bitter  in  the  cup  of  delight,  one  rift  in  the  lute  of 
gladness,  in  the  circumstance  that  there  was  on  board 
the  Serapis  the  notorious  enemy  of  Spain  in  general, 
and  "-Los  liijos  de  Gibraltar'' — the  sons  of  Gibraltar — 
Jorge   Augusto    Sala,    who    had   cruelly,    maliciously, 


244  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

traitorously  and  mendaciously  insulted  the  sons  of 
Gibraltar  in  question,  by  calling  them  Escorpiones  de 
roca — rock-scorpions.  Clearly  I  had  not  followed  the 
Prince  to  India,  and  I  was  not  honoured  by  a  passage 
on  board  the  Serapis  ;  and  it  so  chanced  that  I  was  not 
the  inventor  of  the  term  ''  rock-scorpions;"  which,  as 
all  travellers  in  the  Levant  have  known  for  goodness 
knows  how  long,  is  a  term  often  applied  to  the  Span- 
ish-speaking people  of  Gibraltar.  The  epithet  occurs 
more  than  once  in  Captain  Marryat's  novels,  and  I  am 
almost  certain  that  it  finds  a  place  in  "  Peter  Simple." 
Talking  of  the  Mono,  I  may  mention  that  the  King  of 
the  Monkeys  which  inhabit  the  summit  of  the  Rock 
died  while  I  was  at  Gibraltar ;  and  the  population — I 
speak  in  the  human  and  not  in  the  simian  sense — were 
anxiously  awaiting  the  arrival  of  a  new  monkey  mon- 
arch. I  say  arrival ;  because  at  the  demise  of  the 
Jocko  Crown  at  Gibraltar,  the  new  Sovereign  does 
not  ascend  the  throne  by  hereditary  descent ;  nor  is 
he  elected  by  the  apes  of  the  Rock  itself.  The  new 
King  arrives  from  the  African  coast,  somewhere  near 
Tarifa,  where  there  isalsoa  mountain  of  monkeys  ;  and 
nearly  universal  is  the  popular  belief  that  the  potentate 
with  the  tail  travels  by  way  of  a  tunnel  passing  under 
the  Straits. 

Having  yet  some  weeks  at  my  disposal,  I  crossed 
from  Gibraltar  to  Gran,  in  Algeria,  my  travelling  com- 
panion being  a  son  of  the  late  Sir  Gilbert  Scott,  R.A., 
the  distinguished  Gothic  architect.  Thence  I  took  a 
run  by  rail  to  Algiers ;  whence  I  crossed  to  Cartha- 
gena  in  Spain,  and  so  made  headway  to  Marseilles ; 
but  we  were  nine  days  accomplishing  the  short  voy- 
age, in  a  succession  of  positively  horrible  storms. 


CHAPTER   LIII 

ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA 

I  SHOULD  have  said,  some  pages  back,  that  on  the  day 
when  the  Claimant  was  sentenced  to  his  double  dose 
of  penal  servitude,  took  place  the  funeral  of  my  old 
friend,  Charles  Shirley  Brooks — he  dropped  his  first 
name  in  signing  his  letters ;  and  was  always  known 
among  his  friends  as  "  Shirley."  He  was  the  third 
editor  of  Punch  :  having  succeeded  Tom  Taylor  in  that 
prominent,  if  somewhat  invidious,  position.  He  was 
verging  on  his  sixtieth  year,  when  he  was  with  appar- 
ent suddenness  snatched  from  a  host  of  friends.  Shir- 
ley Brooks  had  not  been  a  member  of  the  original 
staff  of  PtincJi :  in  fact  for  a  considerable  time  he  was  a 
militant  member  of  the  opposite  camp.  He  had  al- 
ways been  friendly  with  Thackeray  and  with  a  Beck- 
ett ;  but  he  had  some  kind  of  grudge  against  Douglas 
Jerrold,  who  returned  the  inimical  feeling  with  inter- 
est. Shirley  was  the  son  of  an  architect  well  known 
in  his  day,  who  was  the  designer  of  the  London  Insti- 
tution in  Finsbury  Circus.  I  think  that  his  son  was 
bred  to  the  law,  whence  he  drifted  into  literature  and 
journalism.  So  early  as  1845,  he  was  writing  short 
humorous  stories  in  Bentleys  Miscellany,  and  in  1847,  I 
first  made  his  acquaintance,  as  I  have  already  set  forth, 
in  connection  with  the  Man  in  the  Moon,  to  which  he 
was  a  copious  contributor. 

He  Avas  also  one  of  the  staff  of  the  Morning  Chronicle  ; 
and  when  Henry  Mayhew  suggested  that  his  great 
work  on   "London    Labour  and    the    London    Poor" 


246  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

should  be  extended  by  cognate  researches  into  the 
conditions  of  labour  and  poverty  in  continental  coun- 
tries, Shirley  Brooks  was  despatched  on  a  mission  of 
inquiry  in  the  provinces  of  European  Russia.  Some 
of  his  observations,  full  of  brilliant  description  and 
witty  comment,  were  embodied  in  an  entertaining- 
book  called  "  The  Russians  of  the  South."  On  his  re- 
turn he  was  appointed  to  write,  during  the  session,  the 
Parliamentary  summary  in  the  Morning  Chronicle,  and 
eventually  made  up  his  quarrel  with  Punch,  or  rather 
with  one  or  two  of  the  Punchites,  and  contributed  to 
the  pages  of  that  periodical,  in  which  in  the  course  of 
fifty  years,  not  one  unseemly  word  or  impure  thought 
has  found  a  place,  a  vivacious  tale  of  modern  life,  called 
"  Miss  Violet  and  Her  Offers."  He  was  also  the 
author  of  a  novel,  not  published  in  Punch,  but  in  three- 
volume  form,  called  "  The  Silver  Cord,"  which  was 
illustrated  by  Sir  John  Tenniel. 

As  an  editor  of  Punch,  Shirley  Brooks  was  perhaps 
not  quite  so  diplomatically  opportune  as  Mark  Lemon, 
but  he  was  a  much  more  brilliant  man  at  the  helm  in 
Whitefriars  than  Tom  Taj^lor  had  been.  Tom  Taylor 
was  a  ripe,  classical  scholar,  and  an  admirable  play- 
wright; he  was  essentially  clever,  just,  and  upright, 
but  he  was  not  very  much  gifted  with  either  wit  or 
humour  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term.  Beyond  his 
exceedingly  droll  "  Adventures  of  an  Unprotected  Fe- 
male," I  cannot  recall  any  Punch  contributions  of  his 
which  were  absolutely  comic ;  and,  being  altogether 
bereft  of  an  ear  for  music,  the  poetry  on  which  he 
occasionally  ventured  was,  as  a  rule,  deplorably  cac- 
ophonous. Shirley  Brooks,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a 
born  poet.  Whether  the  brilliant  verse  with  which  he 
copiously  enriched  the  columns  of  Punch  has  ever  been 
reprinted  in  a  form  even  approximating  to  complete- 
ness, I  am  not  aware  ;  but  he  was  the   author,  to  my 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO    RUSSIA  247 

knowledge,  of  scores  of  graceful  Ij-rics,  which,  to  my 
mind,  posterity  should  not  willingly  let  die.  I  had 
known  his  pleasant  and  naturally  humorous  wife  ever 
since  I  was  a  boy.  She  was  a  ]\Iiss  Walkinshaw  : — one 
of  two  good-looking  sisters,  who,  from  their  marked 
divergence  in  complexion,  had  their  miniatures  paint- 
ed about  1843,  as  "Night"  and  "  Morning,"  by  that 
Mr.  Carl  Schiller,  of  whom  I  w^as  at  the  time  a  pupil. 
As  a  further  illustration  of  the  world  beinsf  after  all 
not  such  a  very  big  village,  I  may  mention  that 
about  1S64  I  found  Carl  Schiller  engaged  in  the  com- 
paratively humble,  but  useful,  task  of  converting  pho- 
tographic portraits  into  miniatures  at  the  studio  of  a 
well-known  photographer  in  Regent  Street.  He  was 
overjoyed  to  meet  me  again,  and  painted,  in  miniature, 
a  little  portrait  of  myself,  to  fit  into  a  gold  locket, 
which  I  gave  to  my  wife. 

It  would  be  unjust  were  I  to  omit  to  put  on  record 
another  instance  of  the  constant  and  thoughtful  kind- 
ness invariably  shown  to  men  of  letters  by  the  Earl 
of  Beaconsfield.  When  Shirley  Brooks  died.  Lord 
Beaconsfield  was  Prime  Minister.  The  editor  of 
Punch  did  not  pass  away  in  absolutely  straitened  cir- 
cumstances ;  he  left  a  policy  of  insurance,  the  realisa- 
tion of  which  placed  a  considerable  sum  of  money  at 
the  disposal  of  his  widow ;  but  she  had  only  attained 
middle-age,  and  she  had  two  sons  growing  up,  the 
completion  of  whose  education  was  indispensable. 
One  day,  passing  through  Cavendish  Square,  I  met 
Alderman  Sir  Benjamin  Phillips,  some  time  Lord 
Mayor  of  London,  the  worthiest  and  most  generous 
of  Hebrews,  who  had  shown  very  many  kindnesses  to 
Shirley.  In  the  course  of  conversation,  he  asked  con- 
fidentially how  the  widow  and  her  sons  were  getting 
on;  and  I  told  him  frankly  the  whole  state  of  the  case, 
so  far  as  I  knew  it ;  explaining  to  him  how  sorely  dif-- 


248  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

ficult  it  was  for  a  modern  Englishman  of  letters,  even 
with  an  income  amounting-  to  ^2,000  a  year,  to  save 
anything  substantial  for  those  whom  he  left  behind. 
The  prominent  literary  man  of  the  existing  era,  now 
that  Bohemia  has  become,  so  far  as  literature  is  con- 
cerned, an  almost  mythical  land,  does  not  find  it  so 
very  easy  to  lay  by  a  competence  for  his  widow,  even 
if  he  enjoys  an  income  larger  than  that  I  have  set 
down.  He  is  largely  asked  out  into  society  ;  and,  un- 
less he  be  a  curmudgeon,  he  must  himself  occasion- 
ally entertain  in  partial  requital  of  the  entertainment 
which  he  has  himself  received. 

If  he  be  a  journalist  as  well  as  an  author,  and  writes 
on  a  great  variety  of  topics,  native  and  foreign,  he 
must  needs  keep  a  secretary,  and  a  secretary  must  be 
not  a  mere  clerk,  but  an  intelligent  and  accomplished 
person.  If  he  be  stricken  in  the  vale  of  years  and  is 
slightly  infirm,  or  has  suffered  from  bronchial  trouble, 
he  cannot  well  get  on  without  a  brougham  ;  which  he 
will  find  in  the  long  run  not  much  more  expensive  and 
a  great  deal  safer  than  a  hansom  cab,  in  which,  other- 
wise, he  would  be  forced  to  be  continually  careering ; 
and  this  brougham  he  keeps,  not  for  show,  but  for  use, 
just  as  a  medical  man  does.  In  addition  to  his  inci- 
dental expenses,  he  is  chronically  the  prey  of  all  the 
begging  letter  writers,  the  secretaries  of  hospitals, 
refuges,  asylums,  and  other  charitable  institutions  in 
London  and  the  provinces.  He  is  expected  to  sub- 
scribe to  a  memorial  statue  of  that  great  philanthro- 
pist Sqybob,  or  to  become  a  member  of  the  committee 
for  purchasing  the  birthplace  of  the  Poet  Podgers  ; 
and  if  his  donations  to  these  doubtless  deserving  ob- 
jects are  in  amount  less  than  those  given  by  a  Mem- 
ber of  Parliament — I  do  not  say  anything  about  Peers, 
because,  as  a  rule,  they  have,  or  say  that  they  have, 
nothing  to  give — he  is  looked  down  upon  and  sneered 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  249 

at  as  a  miser.  Finally,  the  moi-e  he  earns,  the  more 
does  the  Imperial  Government  tax  him  for  being  in- 
dustrious;  and  every  spring  a  sum  which  would  pay 
half  his  house-rent  is  extorted  from  him  in  the  shape 
of  the  unjust  and  iniquitous  Income  Tax. 

Naturally  I  did  not  say  all  this  to  Sir  Benjamin  ; 
but  I  gave  him  a  sketch  of  what  was  passing  through 
my  mind  ;  whereupon  he  nodded  his  good  old  head, 
and  told  me  to  enlarge  on  what  I  half  hinted  in  a  nice 
long  letter,  which  he  would  show  to  Disraeli  on  the 
ensuing  Sunday  afternoon,  when  the  statesman  almost 
invariably  paid  a  visit  to  the  Rothschild  mansion,  in 
Piccadilly.  A  very  few  days  afterwards  I  had  occa- 
sion, on  some  matter  of  business,  to  see  Sir  Benjamin 
Phillips  again  in  the  Venetian  Parlour  at  the  Mansion 
House,  where  he  was  acting  as  locuvi  tenciis  for  the 
then  Lord  Mayor.  "  It's  all  right,"  he  said  to  me, 
after  the  customary  greeting  had  been  exchanged  ; 
"  Disraeli  has  read  your  letter,  and  Mrs.  Shirley 
Brooks's  name  is  down  for  a  pension  :  "  which  pension 
was  presently  allotted  to  her.  In  concluding  this  par- 
enthetical notice  of  my  old  and  valued  friend,  I  may 
mention  that  Shirley  Brooks  was  a  very  handsome 
man — prematurel}^  white  as  to  hair  and  beard ;  he  had 
the  clearest  of  complexions,  and  a  lustrous,  speaking 
eye.  In  politics  he  was  a  staunch  Conservative ;  and 
although  in  the  days  when  I  had  not  any  politics  at  all, 
w^e  were  at  the  very  opposite  poles  of  political  convic- 
tions, there  was  never  any  discord  between  us  on  pub- 
lic topics. 

There  is  no  need  I  trust  for  me  to  apologise  for  hav- 
ing written  the  above  lines.  I  am  not  aware  of  any 
living  man  of  letters  who  was  sufficiently  the  contem- 
porary and  the  intimate  of  Shirley  Brooks,  to  be  able 
to  write  even  a  fragmentary  Memoir  of  him,  to  say 
nothing  of  an  exhaustive  Life. 


250  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

The  year  1876  was  to  me  one  of  the  usual  journalis- 
tic activity  and  industry,  but  it  was  not,  so  far  as  I 
can  remember,  marked  by  any  noteworthy  adventures. 
It  was  signalised,  however,  by  a  curious  little  social 
victory,  won  after  hard  battling  by  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph. For  years  we  had  advocated  as  forcibly  as 
ever  we  could,  the  demolition  of  old  Temple  Bar.  I 
am  sure  that,  if  I  wrote  one,  I  wrote  forty  leading 
articles,  impetuously  demanding  the  removal  of  the 
disreputable  old  structure  :  first,  because  it  did  no 
honour,  but  rather  discredit,  to  the  memory  of  its  il- 
lustrious designer,  Sir  Christopher  Wren.  The  de- 
sign in  question  is  not  an  original  one  —  there  is  at 
least  one  church  in  Rome,  the  architectural  outlines  of 
which  closely  resemble  those  of  the  old  Bar,  i.e.,  a 
basement  composed  of  one  central  arch  and  two  side 
arches,  or  posterns,  and  an  attic  storey  with  niches  for 
statues,  and  a  central  window,  flanked  by  two  ugly, 
cumbrous,  carved  stone  scrolls.  Sir  Christopher  was 
never  in  Rome,  but  there  is  a  counterpart  of  Temple 
Bar  in  a  gateway  in  one  of  the  courtyards  of  the  Pal- 
ace at  Fontainebleau,  which  the  great  English  archi- 
tect is  known  to  have  explored. 

Next,  I  objected  to  the  Bar  as  a  grievous  obstruc- 
tion to  metropolitan  traffic,  and  as  the  chief  reason  of 
the  permanent  congestion  of  locomotion  in  one  of  the 
busiest  arterial  thoroughfares  of  the  Metropolis.  A 
wag  of  the  last  generation  used  to  say  that  a  block  in 
Fleet  Street  was  generally  due  to  one  of  two  causes — 
either  there  was  an  old  lady  who  had  stopped  her 
brougham  at  Child's  Bank,  and  was  unable  to  find  her 
cheque-book  ;  or  large  quantities  of  soda-water  and 
bottled -beer  were  being  delivered  from  a  wagon  at 
the  shell-fish  shop,  higher  up.  Finally,  the  detestation 
we  experienced  for  the  Bar  was  intensified  by  the  re- 
membrance that,  historically,  it   was  associated  with 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  25 1 


nothing  save  that  which  was  gloomy,  deplorable,  and 
disgraceful  in  English  history.  For  a  hundred  years 
the  grimy  architrave  had  been  defaced  by  poles  sur- 
mounted by  the  skulls  of  gallant  Jacobite  gentlemen, 
who  had  sacrificed  their  lives  in  a  cause  which  they 
believed  to  be  that  of  religion,  loyalty,  truth,  and 
justice,  and  whom  the  merciless  behests  of  the  bloody- 
minded  law  of  high  treason  had  doomed  to  be  butch- 
ered in  front  of  Newgate,  or  on  Kennington  Com- 
mon. 

This  view  of  the  question  was,  I  am  glad  to  say, 
more  effectually  taken  up  by  the  late  Mr.  Godwin,  the 
architect,  who  published  a  powerful  pamphlet,  en- 
titled "  Temple  Bar,  the  City  Golgotha,"  but  public 
opinion  had  become  fully  ripe  for  the  removal  of  this 
foul  and  hideous  old  anachronism,  before  the  City 
Fathers  could  be  persuaded  to  yield  to  the  popular 
demand,  and  cart  away  the  crazy  old  nuisance.  The 
City  surveyors,  as  early  as  March,  1868,  reported  the 
structure  to  be  dangerous  ;  the  facade  cracked  soon 
after  that,  and  it  began  to  sink,  so  that  by  the  end  of 
July  its  rotten  masonry  had  to  be  shored  up  with  un- 
sightly beams  of  timber.  Still  the  Court  of  Common 
Council  hesitated  and  vacillated.  There  was  an  idea 
at  Guildhall,  that  Temple  Bar  somehow  symbolised 
the  municipal  supremacy  of  the  Corporation  of  Lon- 
don ;  since  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Aldermen  were  em- 
powered to  shut  the  old  oaken  gates  of  the  Bar  in  the 
face  even  of  Royalty,  and  not  to  throw  them  open  un- 
til Garter  King  of  Arms,  or  some  other  dignified  dele- 
gate of  the  Crown  had  asked  permission  to  enter.  At 
length,  on  the  27th  September,  the  removal  of  the  Bar 
was  voted  by  the  Court  of  Common  Council,  and  early 
in  the  ensuing  year,  the  work  of  demolition  was  com- 
menced. The  stones  were  numbered,  and  were  event- 
ually  given   to    Sir    Henry    Meux,    Bart.,   to   be   re- 


252  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

erected  at  his  seat,  Theobald's  Park,  near  Cheshunt ; 
but  with  the  knowledge  that  the  bogey  in  question  has 
vanished  from  the  Metropolis,  it  matters  but  little,  I 
should  say,  whereabouts  it  is  now  exhibiting  its  dimin- 
ished head. 

When  the  wretched  old  thing  had  been  entirely 
cleared  away  from  Fleet  Street,  the  incurably  obsti- 
nate civic  authorities  were  permitted  to  mark  the  site 
of  Temple  Bar  by  another  semi-obstruction,  that  is  to 
say,  they  set  up,  between  the  branch  offices  of  the 
Bank  of  England  and  the  banking  house  of  Messrs. 
Child,  whose  firm  had  for  two  hundred  years  kept  their 
old  ledgers  and  cash  books  in  the  windows  above  the 
archway,  a  kind  of  stone  sandwich,  in  which  were  in- 
serted indifferent  statues  of  the  Queen  and  the  Prince 
of  Wales.  The  design  also  comprised  a  couple  of 
panels  filled  wdth  absurd  tableaux  in  high  relief,  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  Lord  Mayor  in  his  state  coach, 
and  a  number  of  the  Aldermen  on  horseback ;  while 
the  entire  monstrosity  was  crowned  by  the  bronze 
effigy  of  some  fabulous  creature  which  the  City  people 
declared  to  be  a  griffin,  but  which  experts  in  apocry- 
phal zoology  announced  to  be  a  dragon.  The  stone 
sandwich  and  its  plastic  disfigurements  cost  nearly 
^12,000;  whereas  not  more  than  £i,Soo  had  been  spent 
on  the  architectural  admiration  of  Sir  Christopher 
Wren. 

I  must  do  the  City  Fathers  the  justice  to  say  that 
they  exhibited  just  one  touch  of  sly  humour  ere  Temple 
Bar  altogether  disappeared  in  the  leafy  shades  of  Theo- 
bald's. It  was  pretty  well  known  that  I  had  been 
active  in  brinorinor  about  the  demolition  of  the  whilom 
Place  of  Skulls.  The  Common  Council  caused  a  num- 
ber of  medals  commemorative  of  the  Bar  to  be  struck, 
from  the  lead  which  covered  the  superstructure ;  and 
one  of  these  medals  was  sent  to  me  from   Guildhall, 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  253 

with  a  polite  note  expressing  the  civic  appreciation  of 
the  solicitude  with  which  I  had  sat  at  the  death-bed  of 
a  venerable  relic  of  the  past.  I  replied  as  politely : 
stating  that  I  had  not  only  sat  by  the  death-bed  of 
Temple  Bar,  but  that  I  had  been  humbly  instrumental 
in  pulling  the  pillow  from  under  the  head  of  the 
scandalous  old  moribund.  I  took  a  rubbing  in  heel- 
ball  from  the  metal  disc,  and  then  presented  the  med- 
al itself  to  a  valued  friend  at  Baltimore,  Maryland, 
U.S.A.  Perhaps  at  Baltimore  that  leaden  lump  may, 
in  process  of  time,  be  really  regarded  as  an  historic 
relic. 

The  close  of  1876  was  politically  tumultuous,  and  to 
me  professionally  exciting.  War  had  broken  put  be- 
tween Turkey  and  Servia ;  and  the  Servians  were 
favoured  with  the  active  sympathies  of  Russia.  It  is 
true  that  early  in  November  the  Tsar  made  a  pacific 
declaration  of  his  intentions  to  Lord  Aus^ustus  Loftus, 
the  British  Ambassador  in  St.  Petersburg ;  but  on  the 
loth  November  His  Imperial  Majesty,  in  an  address  to 
an  assembly  of  nobles  at  the  Kremlin,  Moscow,  said 
that  if  sufficient  guarantees  were  not  given  by  the  Otto- 
man Government  he  would  act  independently.  This 
portentous  announcement  was  held  in  England  to  be 
tantamount  to  a  threat  that  the  Emperor  Alexander  II. 
meant  to  go  to  war  with  Turkey  ;  and  that  in  all  prob- 
ability Great  Britain  would  be,  as  an  ancient  ally  of 
Turkey,  very  speedily  embroiled  in  the  quarrel.  At 
all  events,  affairs  in  general  in  South-Eastern  Europe 
were  deemed,  by  the  authorities  in  Fleet  Street,  to  be 
in  a  sufficiently  troubled  condition  to  warrant  my  being 
sent  to  Russia  to  see  how  things  were  going  on  there. 
It  took  me  only  a  few  hours  to  pack  up  ;  and,  furnished 
with  letters  from  the  Foreign  Office  to  Lord  Augustus 
Loftus,  I  was  soon  on  the  road,  by  way  of  Berlin,  to 
the  Muscovite  capital. 


254  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

The  scare  was  not  quite  groundless  ;  the  air  was  full 
of  bellicose  rumours,  although  I  am  bound  to  admit 
that,  socially  speaking,  there  did  not  seem  to  be  the 
slightest  ill-feeling  existing  in  Russian  society  against 
Englishmen.  I  was  most  cordially  received  by  the 
Ambassador,  who,  among  other  favours,  introduced 
me  to  a  clever  gentleman  named  Horn,  who  was  the 
editor  of  the  Journal  dc  St.  Petersbourg,  a  daily  paper 
shrewdly  suspected  to  be  the  organ  of  the  Russian 
Foreign  Office,  and  published  in  the  French  language. 
It  was  in  this  journal,  just  after  I  arrived  in  St. 
Petersburg,  that  Prince  Gortschakoff  published  his 
memorable  manifesto,  denying  that  Russia  had 
formed  any  schemes  for  territorial  aggrandisement 
at  the  expense  of  Turkey,  and  sneering  at  the  no- 
toriously apocryphal  will  of  Peter  the  Great,  as  one 
of  the  "  Contcs  dc  la  Merc  rOie"  or  tales  of  Mother 
Goose.  All  experts  in  continental  politics  are  aware 
that  this  so-called  testament  of  Peter  Velike  was  con- 
cocted by  August  von  Kotzebue,  a  hack  political 
pamphleteer  and  subordinate  diplomatic  agent  in  the 
service  of  Russia,  who  is  just  faintly  remembered 
in  England  as  the  author  of  that  mournful  and 
mawkish  drama,  The  Strajigcr.  Peter  the  Great  no 
more  declared  in  any  will  he  ever  made  that  the 
ultimate  mission  of  Russia  was  to  seize  Constantino- 
ple, than  that  his  successors  were  bound  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  Scilly  Islands  and  the  Peak  of  Derby- 
shire. Still  it  is  as  likely  enough  that  Kotzebue  had 
his  cue  to  the  line  of  Russian  politics  which  he  was  to 
indicate  in  this  bogus  testament. 

Mr.  Horn  was  kind  enough  to  hold  at  his  residence 
a  couple  of  receptions  at  which  I  had  the  honour  to 
meet,  so  I  was  given  to  understand,  the  flower  of  in- 
tellectual Russian  society.  One  gathering  was  com- 
posed exclusively  of  university  professors  and  medical 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  255 


men.  In  1876  I  had,  apparently,  hopelessl}"— but  such 
turned  out  not  to  be  the  case— forgotten  all  the  Rus- 
sian which  I  had  acquired  in  1856;  so  the  "med- 
icos "  and  the  professors  all  talked  to  me  in  French. 
I  mention  this  trifling  circumstance  for  the  reason 
that  soon  after  my  departure  from  Russia,  there  ap- 
peared in  a  leading  St.  Petersburg  paper  a  lengthy 
leading  article  in  which  I  was  accused  of  being, 
not  an  English  journalist  but  a  Turkish  spy.  It 
happened,  to  be  sure,  that  there  was,  at  the  time,  a 
Count  Sala  in  the  diplomatic  service  of  Turkey ; 
and  the  writer  in  the  Russian  newspaper  made  the 
verj^  best  he  could  of  the,  to  him,  damning  circum- 
stance that  at  several  dinner  parties  and  receptions 
in  Russian  society  at  which  I  had  been  present,  I 
had  never  been  heard  to  speak  a  word  of  English. 
I  can  only  deferentially  say  that  I  did  not  make  use 
of  my  vernacular  tongue,  because  nobody  I  met  out- 
side the  walls  of  the  Embassy  ever  spoke  English  to 
me. 

I  had,  apart  from  political  complications,  a  right 
merry  time ;  although  my  unfortunate  name  was  two 
or  three  times  the  cause  of  some  trifling  embarrass- 
ment to  me.  I  resided  at  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre, 
in  the  Izaak's  Ploschad,  or  Great  Square  of  St.  Izaak's 
Cathedral  ;  and  it  chanced  that  in  the  same  hotel 
there  was  staying  a  French  prima  donna  called  Mile. 
Sala,  or  Salla  ;  and  we  were  continually  getting  hold 
of  each  other's  letters.  I  think  that  I  was  sufficiently 
judicious  not  to  unseal  any  of  the  missives  addressed 
to  Mademoiselle ;  but  she  invariably  opened  the  let- 
ters addressed  to  me,  and  would  come  down  in  a  tow- 
ering passion  to  my  room,  and  shrilly  insinuate  that  I 
was  not  an  "  hoinnie  cominc  il  faitt,"  that  I  was  "  nial- 
honnctc^'  that  I  was  a  "■  gonjat^'  a  ^^  cancre''  and  the 
''dernier  des  derniers^'  because   my  paternal  designa- 


256  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

tion  happened  to  be  identical,  or  nearly  identical,  with 
hers.  However,  she  gave  a  benefit  concert  during  her 
stay,  and  I  took  a  couple  of  stalls  for  it ;  and  she  be- 
came partially  placated. 

I  had  as  an  interpreter,  and  ultimately  as  a  courier, 
one  of  the  oddest  fishes  that  I  ever  came  across  ;  he  was 
an  Englishman  of  originally  "  horsey  "  tendencies  ;  and 
had  come  out  to  Russia  as  a  stud  groom  to  some 
wealthy  Boyard,  whose  service  he  had  quitted  to  be- 
come a  valet  de  place  at  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre.  He 
had  a  settled  idea  in  his  mind  —  first,  that  English 
people  knew  nothing  whatever  about  Russia ;  and 
next,  that  journalists  were  despicable  and  degraded 
beings,  who  never  had  any  money.  I  went  out  to  din- 
ner one  evening,  in  the  Mala  Millionnaia  ;  and  on  my 
return  I  asked  him,  casually,  if  he  knew  who  my  host 
was.  "  He  is  a  gentleman,"  he  replied,  in  a  tone  of 
dogged  disdain.  "  Yes,  certainly,"  I  said  ;  "  I  knew 
that  before  I  went  to  dine  with  him  ;  but  who  is  he?" 
"He  is  a  gentleman,"  he  repeated  ;  "a  real  gentleman, 
the  proprietor  of  extensive  mills  for  making  rape-seed 
oil,  in  the  government  of  Tomsk."  By-and-b3^e,  when 
he  found  that  I  was  receiving  constant  invitations  to 
dine,  not  only  at  the  British  Embassy,  but  at  the  other 
Legations,  and  at  great  Russian  houses,  I  used  to  hear 
him  muttering  that  he  really  must  charge  me  an  addi- 
tional fifty  kopeks  a  da3^  I  had  evidently  risen,  not 
in  his  moral,  but  in  his  financial  estimation.  Add  to 
these  pleasing  traits  that  he  had  a  morbid  hatred  of 
the  Jews,  and  an  abiding  terror  of  the  police,  and  you 
have  a  tolerably  comprehensive  picture  of  this  remark- 
able cicerone.  Stay  ;  if  he  was  interrupted  in  his  cut- 
and-dried  descriptions  of  the  rarities  at  the  palaces 
and  museums  which  we  visited,  he  would  grow  abso- 
lutely livid  with  rage,  clench  his  fists  convulsively, 
and  breathe  hard. 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  257 

For  example,  in  the  Palace  of  the  Hermitage  there 
is  an  extraordinary  collection  of  works  of  gold  and 
silver  repouss^,  discovered  in  certain  ancient  sarcoph- 
agi at  Kertch  ;  so  he  would  begin  —  "Tombs  of  the 
ancient  kings  of  Scythia  ;  four  thousand  years  old. 
Tomb  of  the  Master  of  the  Horse  of  the  ancient  kings 
of  Scythia  ;  four  thousand  years  old.  Observe  the 
bosses  ;  observe  the  ornaments  in  gold  and  silver — four 
thousand  years  old."  I  took  the  liberty  of  interrupt- 
ing him  to  observe  that  the  processes  of  horse-taming, 
exhibited  on  a  splendid  shield  of  gold,  precisely  cor- 
responded with  the  methods  employed  by  Mr.  Rarey, 
the  noted  donipteiir  of  refractory  steeds;  whereupon 
he  flew  into  a  rage,  as  before  described,  and  proceeded 
to  indulge  in  some  broken  utterances  in  Russian,  to 
me  incomprehensible,  but  which  I  do  not  think  I  am 
wrong  in  assuming  to  have  been  vehement  curses,  in- 
voked on  my  head,  and  on  that  of  the  transatlantic 
horse-tamer. 

One  day  I  had  taken,  in  his  company,  a  jaunt  in  an 
open  droschka  to  the  very  extremity  of  the  Nevskoi, 
even  to  the  historic  monastery  of  St.  Alexander,  of 
that  ilk.  It  happened  that  a  Russian  friend  had  told 
me  the  exact  fare  for  such  a  journe3^  It  was  eighty 
kopeks,  which  I  dulv  handed  to  the  Ischvostchik.  To 
my  amused  astonishment,  the  Jehu,  with  the  long 
beard  and  the  proportionately  long  caftan,  immedi- 
ately proceeded  to  fall  on  his  knees,  and  sprawl  across 
the  cushion  of  the  droschka  ;  occasionally  raising  his 
hands  to  heaven  and  uttering  a  series  of  piteous  ejacu- 
lations. "  What  the  deuce  is  the  fellow  doing  ? "  I 
asked  impatiently  of  my  interpreter.  "  He  is  pray- 
ing," he  made  answer ;  "  that  Heaven  will  be  merciful 
to  the  person  who  has  given  him  an  insufficient  fare ; 
and  a  gentleman,"  he  added,  with  bitter  sarcasm, 
*'  would  give  him  a  rouble."  For  once  I  put  my  foot 
II. — 17 


258  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

down  ;  I  knew  enough  Russian  to  bid  the  driver  "  go 
to  the  devil,"  and  I  told  the  valet  de place  to  behave 
himself. 

You  may  ask  how  it  came  about  that  1  brooked  so 
long  the  man's  insolence  and  forwardness,  but  he 
amused  me  while  I  was  riding  with  him  ;  I  had  only 
to  mention,  apparently  inadvertently,  the  name  of 
Trepoff,  who  was  then  Chief  of  Police,  to  make  my 
guide  start  up  from  his  seat  in  a  spasm  of  consterna- 
tion ;  and  a  sure  way  of  arousing  his  ire  was  to  say 
something  kindly  about  his  much  loathed  foes  the 
Jews,  There  were  times  when  he  was  placable,  and 
even  amiable  :  that  was  when  he  had  had  a  thorough 
skinful  of  vodka,  or  corn  brandy. 

Now  and  again  the  ill-tempered  valet  de  place  would 
become  civil,  and  for  a  short  time,  almost  amiable.  It 
was  when  he  had  partaken  somewhat  too  freely  of  the 
just-mentioned  vodka  ;  under  which  circumstances  he 
would  tell  me  confidently  that  he  was  madly,  and 
hopelessly,  in  love  with  a  young  person  of  Icelandish 
extraction,  who  was  lady's-maid  in  the  family  of  a 
Russian  Minister,  Plenipotentiary  at  the  Court  of 
Stockholm.  Once  a  year  His  Excellency  came  to  St. 
Petersburg,  on  leave  of  absence  ;  but,  according  to  the 
showing  of  the  crusty  cicerone,  the  young  person  of 
Icelandish  extraction  was  as  cold  as  the  country  of 
her  birth,  and  only  gave  him,  metaphorically  speaking, 
so  many  penny  ices  in  return  for  the  burning  embers 
of  his  passion.  Poor  man  !  somehow  or  another  he 
diverted  rile,  and  I  bore  with  his  disagreeable  pecul- 
iarities :  chiefiy,  I  should  say,  because  Russia,  notwith- 
standing the  slight  savour  of  Orientalism  which  you 
enjoy  while  rambling  through  the  bazaars,  especially 
in  Moscow,  is  a  miserably  monotonous  country. 
There  is  no  middle-class;  there  is  no  medium  between 
a  luxurious  and  sensuous  life  made  up  of  champagne, 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  259 

sterlet  balls,  ^(Jzrt'Vi-,  operas,  French  plays,  and  the  ballet, 
and  a  squalid  existence,  the  distinguishing  features  of 
which  are  cabbage  soup,  salted  cucumbers,  rye-bread, 
red-hot  brick  stoves,  grimy  sheepskin  toiiloupes,  and 
the  mingled  odour  of  tallow,  coarse  tobacco,  fiery 
vodka,  and  unwashed  moujik. 

I  had  the  honour  of  enjoying,  during  my  stay  in 
Petropolis,  the  friendship  of  the  American  Minister, 
who,  in  addition  to  being  a  diplomatist,  was  a  dram- 
atist and  poet  of  no  mean  repute  ;  and  I  shall  never 
forget  a  remark  once  made  by  his  bright  and  observ- 
ant spouse.  "  St.  Petersburg,"  she  used  to  say»  "  is  the 
grandest  of  capitals ;  the  diplomatic  corps  are  sur- 
rounded by  a  galaxy  of  diamonds,  stars,  crosses,  rib- 
bons, and  splendid  uniforms.  But  all  the  while  you 
feel  that  you  are  in  a  cage.  The  bars  are  gilded,  I 
freely  grant ;  but  a  golden  cage  is,  nevertheless,  a 
prison;  and  I'd  rather  be  at  the  Continental  Hotel, 
Philadelphia,  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania." 

I  went  down  to  Moscow  in  quest  of  rumours  of  war, 
and  I  found  plenty  of  indices  pointing  to  a  proximate 
outbreak  of  hostilities  between  Russia  and  Turkey. 
One  morning  I  received  a  despatch  from  Fleet  Street, 
saying,  "  Go  to  Warsaw  ;  instructions  awaiting  you." 
The  winter  had  set  in  with  its  accustomed  keenness; 
but  you  suffer  less  from  intense  cold  in  Russia  than  in 
any  country  with  Avhich  I  am  acquainted.  I  have  felt 
cold  in  Canada,  in  New  York,  and  even  in  Vienna,  in 
winter  time ;  but  in  Russia  the  natural  asperity  of  the 
climate  has  led  the  ingenious  Moscovites  to  adopt  a 
multitude  of  devices  which  almost  completely  ward 
off  the  onslaughts  of  King  Frost.  Your  rooms  are  al- 
ways kept  warm  at  a  temperature  of  at  least  70  de- 
grees ;  and  in  most  drawing-rooms  there  is  a  kind  of 
vivarium  of  flowering  plants,  with  ivy  and  Virginian 
creeper  clinging  to  a  mural  trelliswork.     Nearly  one 


26o  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

side  of  the  apartment  is  occupied  by  an  immense  stove, 
covered  with  white  enamelled  tiles,  often  of  so  ornate 
a  pattern  that  it  might  be  a  monument  to  the  memory 
of  some  eighteenth  century  Landgrave  of  a  petty  Rus- 
sian principality ;  and,  from  November  till  March,  the 
icy  air  from  the  outside  is  only  admitted  by  the  ser- 
vants at  early  morning,  while  you  are  still  comfortably 
in  bed,  through  a  small  square  Judas  trap,  in  one  of 
the  window-panes,  called  a  vasistas,  a  term,  obviously 
a  corruption  from  the  German  was  ist  das — what  is 
it?  You  never  venture  out  unless  you  are  swathed 
in  a  huge  furred  pelisse  ;  and  even  the  carriage  in 
which  you  ride  contains  a  small  stove,  and  the  doors 
and  windows  of  the  vehicle  are  shielded  from  the  ex- 
ternal blast  by  strips  of  list.  - 

It  was  thus  with  a  light  heart  that  I  left  Moscow  on 
my  way  from  St.  Petersburg  en  route  for  Warsaw :  a 
somewhat  circuitous  mode  of  travelling,  I  confess,  but 
1  had  to  get  some  money  from  my  bankers  in  St.  Pe- 
tersburg. During  my  stay  in  Warsaw,  Madame  Ade- 
lina  Patti  was  singing  at  the  Great  Theatre  ;  and  she 
was  so  kind  as  to  send  me  for  one  of  her  performances 
a  couple  of  stalls,  by  the  hands  of  one  of  the  most 
alarmingly  imposing  chasseurs  that  I  ever  saw.  An 
American  essayist  has  somewhere  observed  that  the 
two  most  "  spanglorious "  creatures  of  which  he  is 
aware  are  a  cock  turkey  and  the  captain  of  a  British 
man-of-war  in  full  rig ;  but  I  will  back  Madame  Ade- 
lina  Patti's  chasseur  against  both.  His  whiskers  and 
his  cocked  hat  and  plumes  made  an  immense  impres 
sion  on  my  ill-conditioned  cicerone,  whom  I  had  now 
taken  into  regular  employ  as  a  travelling  courier ;  and 
1  used  to  hear  him  muttering  to  himself  that  if  gentle- 
men had  letters  brought  to  them  by  such  heavy  swells 
as  the  party  with  the  cocked  hat,  he  must  certainly  de- 
mand an  increase  of  salary. 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  26l 


A  pleasant  acquaintance  did  I  also  make  in  the  city 
of  the  Kremlin,  in  Mr.  Leslie,  Her  Britannic  Majesty's 
Consul,  who  turned  out  to  be  the  brother  of  Mr.  Henry 
Leslie  of  musical  renown.  The  friendly  Consul  came 
to  the  railway  terminus  to  see  me  off.  The  only  other 
occupant  of  the  well-warmed  compartment  in  the  cor- 
ridor train  was  a  Russian  general  officer,  tall,  stalwart, 
and  middle-aged,  with  the  usual  grey  great  coat  over 
his  full  military  uniform.  He  was  very  courteous  — 
the  Russians  next  to  the  Mexicans  are  the  politest 
people  in  the  world.  We  exchanged  cigars ;  and  for 
about  an  hour  we  conversed  in  French,  which  of  course 
he  spoke  with  perfect  fluency  and  purity.  Suddenly, 
as  he  was  lighting  a  fresh  Havana,  he  said  in  English, 
"  You're  an  Englishman  ?  "  I  bowed,  and  owned  the 
soft  impeachment.  "  I  knew  it,"  he  continued,  "  be- 
cause I  heard  you  talking  English  to  Mr.  Leslie,  the 
English  Consul,  at  Moscow,  just  before  the  train 
started  ;  and  now,"  he  added,  "  might  I  without  giv- 
ing offence,  ask  what  is  just  at  this  moment  the  pre- 
dominant thought  in  your  mind  concerning  my  hum- 
ble self?"  I  felt  slightly  embarrassed  at  the  direct- 
ness of  this  question,  and  was  stammering  out  some 
conventional  banality  about  my  gratification  at  having 
the  honour  of — and  so  forth  and  so  forth,  when  the 
middle-aged  General  stopped  me.  "  Let  us  be  frank  ; 
you  were  thinking  that  I  was  speaking  with  a  broad 
Scotch  accent."  I  replied  laughing,  that  that  was  pre- 
cisely the  impression  produced  on  my  mind.  "  I'll  tell 
you  how  it  is,"  he  resumed,  "  I  am  General  Greig,  a 
descendant  of  Catherine  H.'s  Admiral  Greig,  and  I  am 
an  aide-de-camp  of  the  Grand  Duke  Constantine.  We 
are  at  present  Russian  subjects,  and  members  of  the 
orthodox  Greek  Church  ;  but  from  father  to  son  the 
boys  of  our  family  are  always  sent  to  be  educated  at 
the  High  School,  Edinburgh."     After  this  explanation 


262  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

we  relapsed  into  French,  and  parted  very  cordially  at 
the  St.  Petersburg  terminus. 

On  the  same  evening  1  dined  at  the  British  Em- 
bassy, and  among  the  guests  was  the  General's  brother, 
Admiral  Greig,  who,  at  that  period,  I  believe  was 
Minister  of  Finance.  He  was  highly  amused  with  my 
account  of  my  rencontre  with  his  brother  ;  but  I  had 
no  opportunity  of  ascertaining  how  His  Excellency 
pronounced  English,  seeing  that  the  party  was  a  very 
small  one,  and  that  one  of  the  guests  was  the  French 
Ambassador,  General  Le  Flo,  who  did  not  speak  the 
language  of  John  Bull ;  and  it  would  have  been  a 
grave  breach  of  one  of  the  strictest  rules  of  Russian 
etiquette  to  converse  in  a  tongue  of  which  any  lady 
or  gentleman  present  was  ignorant.  I  remained  only 
twenty-four  hours  in  Warsaw,  where,  however,  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  meeting  Colonel  Maude,  V.C.,  who 
was  then  British  Consul-General  in  the  Polish  capital 
In  what  remote  region  of  the  world  that  gallant  officer 
may  be  at  present,  I  am  unaware,  but  I  should  say 
that  in  the  way  of  adventures  his  career  has  been  of  a 
nature  to  make  my  own  petty  record  of  life  quite  hum- 
drum and  uneventful. 

The  instructions  that  I  found  waiting  for  me  were, 
as  usual,  terse  and  business-like.  "Go  to  Odessa; 
see  mob :  go  Constantinople."  I  knew  well  enough 
what  "see  mob"  meant;  it  signified,  "Take  notice  of 
the  mobilisation  of  troops  in  the  southern  provinces  of 
Russia."  My  proprietor's  behests  were  simplicity  it- 
self, but  it  was  not  qviite  easy  to  obey  them.  It  was  a 
desperately  hard  winter ;  and  in  many  districts  the 
railways  were  blocked  by  immense  masses  of  snow, 
kept  in  slow  motion  by  the  wind,  and  called  by  the 
French-speaking  Russians  "  chasse-neigcsy  However, 
I  persevered,  as  it  was  simply  my  duty  so  to  do  ;  and 
with  tolerable  ease  I  reached  Kieff,  which  may  be  dc: 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  263 


fined  as  the  ecclesiastical  capital  of  European  Russia. 
Here  are  painted  and  framed,  and  partially  gilt,  an 
innumerable  multitude  of  Ikons — scriptural  and  other 
pictorial  representations  of  the  Panagia,  and  other 
varieties;  Virgins,  white,  pink,  coffee-coloured,  and 
pea-green  for  aught  I  can  tell  ;  Virgins  with  three 
hands,  and  it  may  be  with  two  heads  ;  ecclesiastical 
vestments,  censers,  votive  lamps  and  candlesticks — are 
all  manufactured  at  Kieff. 

Beyond  this  sacrosanct  city,  the  railway  was  avail- 
able for  only  about  fifty  miles  ;  and  then  for  a  couple 
of  days  the  ill-conditioned  courier  and  I  were  fain  to 
travel  in  a  sledge,  with  three  horses  abreast,  over  the 
snowy  steppes.  We  only  travelled  by  day ;  and  our 
driver  could  tell  to  a  verst  the  hour  at  which  we 
should  reach  a  Government  post-house,  where  we 
were  sure  to  find  at  least  hot  tea,  biscuits,  brandy,  and 
repose,  such  as  it  was,  on  sofas  upholstered  in  black 
leather,  and  haunted  to  an  unpleasant  extent  by  insects 
known  to  the  Americans  as  "  chintzes,"  clearly  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  Spanish  "  cJiinchas^'  and  which  by  polite 
English  people  are  termed  "  Norfolk  Howards,"  or 
"  gentlemen  in  brown."  "  They  may  well  call  this  place 
Stony-Stratford,"  remarked  the  traveller  in  the  well- 
known  non  scquitiir  anecdote,  "  for  I  have  been  most 
terribly  bitten  by  fleas."  I  may  hint  that  I  was 
most  terribly  bitten — but  not  by  fleas — at  a  good  many 
Government  post-houses  on  my  way  South.  About 
three  hundred  miles  from  Odessa  we  found  the  rail- 
way again,  and  I  reached  that  city  in  safety.  I  may 
just  add  that  my  nose  did  not  get  frost-bitten  while  I 
was  sledging  it  through  the  snow,  as  I  had  adopted 
the  very  sensible  American  practice  of  covering  my 
whole  face  with  a  thick  layer  of  cold  cream  ;  nor  did  I 
make  the  acquaintance  en  route  of  any  packs  or  pack 
of  wolves.     Had  I  come  within  measurable  distance 


264  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

of  those  normally  famished  brutes,  I  might,  it  is  true, 
have  propitiated  them  by  throwing  out  to  them,  as  a 
peace-offering,  the  ill-conditioned  courier,  who  was, 
like  most  horsey  individuals,  short  of  stature,  and 
sliofht  of  frame. 

The  man's  temper  between  Kieff  and  Odessa  was 
simply  diabolical ;  he  was  continually  grumbling  that 
"  a  gentleman  would  chuck  the  whole  blessed  thing 
up "  and  go  back  to  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre.  How 
would  he  have  looked,  I  wonder,  if  I  had  chucked  him 
out  to  the  potential  wolves?  As  it  was  he  further 
nourished  his  spleen  by  continually  asking  whether  I 
really  thought  that  I  could  get  any  money  from  the 
banker  at  Odessa  on  whom  I  had  a  letter  of  credit. 
"  Real  gentlemen,"  he  added,  "  always  carried  with 
them  a  pocket-book  well  lined  with  rouble  notes." 
Confound  his  impudence !  Yet  the  man  made  me 
laugh  and  was  useful ;  he  was  an  adept  at  slanging  ex- 
tortionate post-masters  and  sledge-drivers,  and  was  al- 
ways able  to  conciliate  subordinate  officers  of  police, 
who  were  perpetually  bearing  down  on  me,  and  who 
professed  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  wording  of  my 
passport,  possibly  because  they  were  incapable  of 
reading  the  document  in  question.  The  Crusty  One 
had  an  infallible  method  for  quieting  these  gentry.  I 
happened  to  have  some  carte  de  visite  about  me,  which 
I  had  had  taken  at  Moscow,  and  in  which  I  was  de- 
picted in  full  travelling  costume,  in  a  fur  pelisse,  jack- 
boots lined  with  lambs'  wool,  seal-skin  gloves,  a  courier 
bag  slung  at  my  left  hip,  and  a  beaver  kalpak  as  big  as 
the  busby  of  a  horse  artilleryman  of  the  last  genera- 
tion. The  Crusty  One  borrowed  one  of  these  photo- 
graphic effigies ;  and  whenever  a  sub-sub-deputy  as- 
sistant inspector  of  gendarmerie  was  troublesome,  he 
used  to  exhibit  the  carte  de  visite  as  proof  positive  that 
it  precisely  corresponded  with  the  description  of  my 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  265 

features  and  general  aspect  given  in  the  passport ;  he 
would  place  the  cardboard  close  before  the  eyes  of  the 
polizei,  and  strange  to  say  the  official  would  at  once, 
with  many  bows  and  smiles,  take  his  departure.  When 
I  asked  the  Crusty  One  to  account  for  the  apparently 
magic  effect  of  these  graphic  displa3-s,  he  replied,  "  I 
took  blessed  good  care  to  put  a  rouble  note  in  front  of 
the  carte  ;  and  an  hour  afterwards  I'll  go  bail  that  the 
beggar  will  be  as  drunk  as  I  should  like  to  be  now." 

Kind  Lord  Augustus  Loftus  had  given  me  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  the  British  Consul-General  at  Odessa, 
a  gentleman  whose  name  has  escaped  me,  but  who 
proved  to  be  politeness  itself.  He  was  a  bit  of  a  wag; 
for  so  soon  as  he  had  read  my  letter  he  proceeded  to 
remark,  in  a  grave,  business-like  tone,  that  the  instruc- 
tions issued  by  the  Foreign  Office  for  consuls  in  for- 
eign countries  did  not  entail  upon  them  the  obligation 
of  showing  any  hospitality  to  persons  provided  with 
official  letters  of  recommendation.  I  bowed,  and  said 
that  the  honour  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  Her 
Majesty's  representative  was  amply  sufficient  for  me, 
whereupon  the  Consul-General  bowed  again,  and  al- 
together dropping  the  business-like  tone,  went  on  to 
say  that  his  dinner  hour  was  half-past  seven,  and  that 
his  wife,  he  was  sure,  would  be  delighted  if  I  would 
favour  them  with  my  company  that  evening.  I  was 
only  too  glad  to  accept  the  invitation,  and  spent  a  de- 
lightful evening  :  one  of  the  guests  being  the  Ottoman 
Consul  at  Odessa,  a  highly-educated  Turkish  gentle- 
man, who  had  been  educated  in  Paris  and  at  Vienna. 

Gilbert  a  Beckett,  in  the  "  Comic  History  of  Eng- 
land," defined  the  character  of  Lord  Chancellor  Bacon 
as  "  streaky."  Of  the  climate  of  Odessa,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  December,  I  may  say  that  it  struck  me  as  being 
of  that  degree  of  streakiness  which  the  Americans  call 
"  a   little   mixed."     In    the    daytime    the    sun    shone 


266  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

brightly,  and  at  noon  the  temperature  was  broiling 
hot ;  whereas  the  evenings  were  chilly,  and  the  nights 
piercingly  cold.  I  saw  all  the  sights  of  the  city,  which 
owes  its  handsome  architectural  features  almost  en- 
tirely to  the  energy  and  good  taste  of  the  French  Due 
de  Richelieu,  who  was  Governor  here  in  the  early 
years  of  the  present  century.  I  went  to  the  Opera 
House,  a  really  splendid  theatre,  but  with  a  rather 
poor  company.  As  for  the  crusty  courier,  he  was  in 
ecstasies  with  Odessa.  "  It's  a  love  of  a  place,"  he  ex- 
claimed ;  *'  grapes  as  big  as  gooseberries  for  breakfast, 
and  real,  red  wine  at  twenty  kopeks  a  quart."  But 
this  dream  of  some  tropical  warmth  was  rudely  inter- 
rupted by  the  fact  that  the  port  of  Odessa  was  slowly 
beginning  to  freeze,  so  I  made  all  haste  to  take  passage 
on  board  a  Russian  pyroscapJic,  or  steamer,  bound  for 
Constantinople. 

The  ill-conditioned  courier  was  agreeably  surprised, 
or  professed  to  be  so,  when  he  found  that  my  bankers 
made  me  an  advance  of  a  thousand  roubles  on  my 
letter  of  credit ;  but  these  astute  financiers  paid  me  in 
Russian  notes,  of  various  denominations  :  telling  me, 
when  I  protested  against  paper  money,  that  there  was 
absolutely  no  gold  at  all  in  Russia.  My  friend,  the 
British  Consul-General,  got  me,  however,  out  of  this 
difficulty  ;  and,  for  a  ver)''  slight  commission,  he  ob- 
tained from  a  money-changer  about  the  most  remark- 
able collection  of  coins  that  ever  came  under  my 
notice.  There  were  golden  ducats  of  Catherine  II., 
hundred -franc  pieces  of  Napoleon  I.,  twenty -dollar 
American  eagles,  Mexican  doubloons,  Friederichs  d'or, 
louis,  Turkish  pounds,  and  Belgian  twenty-franc  pieces. 
I  have  always  had  the  instinct  of  a  collector,  and  I 
should  dearly  have  liked  to  bring  this  curious  assort- 
ment of  coins  home,  and  garner  them  in  one  of  the 
drawers  of  a  cabinet  of  rarities ;  but,  as  it  happened,  I 


ANOTHER   EXPEDITION   TO   RUSSIA  267 

had  to  pay  the  wages  of  the  cantankerous  courier,  and 
hisjourney  back  to  St.  Petersburg,  together  with  my 
passage  to  Constantinople.  So,  as  Charles  Keene's 
Scotchman  would  have  said,  "  Bang  went,"  not  "  sax- 
pence,"  but  Mexican  doubloons  and  the  golden  ducats 
of  the  Semiramis  of  the  North. 


CHAPTER    LIV 

IN   THE   CITY   OF   THE   SULTAN 

We  had  a  tranquil  passage  across  the  Black  Sea,  the 
hue  of  which  struck  me  as  really  approximating  to  its 
name ;  since  its  waters  in  winter  are  a  dark  opaque 
grey ;  whereas  the  Red  Sea,  when  I  traversed  it,  was 
as  blue  as  the  Mediterranean.  The  submarine  coral 
certainly  does  not  give  rubescence  to  the  waters  above. 
We  coasted  for  a  while  along  the  shores  of  the  Crimea, 
where  perfect  summer  seemed  to  be  reigning,  but  it 
grew  raw  and  chilly  when  we  were  off  the  mouths  of 
the  Danube.  The  captain  of  the  steamer  was  a  most 
intelligent  Russian,  who  had  been  second  officer  on 
board  an  East  Indiaman,  and  who  was  continually  de- 
ploring the  accursed  earth-hungering  spirit  which  was 
urging  the  Government  of  his  country  to  force  a  war 
upon  Turkey.  There  were  very  few  passengers  on 
board ;  and  among  them  I  only  remember  a  young 
Russian,  of  noble  family,  who  was  a  lieutenant  in  the 
Imperial  Navy.  He  was  in  the  last  stage  of  consump- 
tion, and  was  on  his  way  to  Naples  "  to  die,"  as  he 
quite  composedly  put  it. 

It  was  happily  a  sunshin)^,  bracing  morning  when 
the  pj/roscap/ie  entered  the  Bosphorus,  The  gloriously 
enchanting  view,  both  of  Europe  and  of  Asia !  You 
know  that  I  am  a  Cockney  ;  you  know  that  I  have  not 
one  grain  of  poetry  or  imagination  in  my  composition 
— I  have  said  so  fifty  times — and  thus  I  am  not  ashamed 
to  say  that  when  we  reached  Buyukdere,  and  the 
marvels  of  Stamboul  were  revealed  to  me,  with   its 


IN   THE   CITY   OF   THE   SULTAN  269 

domes  and  minarets,  all  pink  and  gold  in  the  morning 
Sunshine,  they  reminded  me  of  nothing  so  forcibly  as 
of  the  panoramas  that  Grieve  and  Telbin  used  to  paint 
at  old  Vauxhall  Gardens. 

It  was  about  eleven  when  we  made  Pera.  The  ex- 
amination of  my  baggage  at  the  Custom  House  was  a 
pleasant  farce ;  since  I  had  no  sooner  landed  than  I  en- 
gaged a  Greek  Dragoman,  who  spoke  Italian  fluently, 
and  was  to  do  all  I  needed  for  a  Turkish  viedjidie,  equi- 
valent to  about  five  francs  a  day.  I  gave  him  my  pass- 
port, and  instructed  him  to  distribute  a  moderate 
amount  of  piastres  in  official  quarters  when  such  dis- 
tribution was  expedient;  and,  in  half-an-hour  after  land- 
ing, I  was  safely  housed  at  the  Hotel  de  Byzance,  in 
the  Grand  Rue  de  Pera,  a  Greek  Zcnodocheion,  kept  by 
a  most  obliging  descendant  of  Miltiades.  As  for  my 
dragoman,  I  believe  his  name  was  Constantine  Fenerli ; 
but,  for  convenience,  we  called  him  the  descendant  of 
Alcibiades. 

I  say  we ;  for  in  a  few  days  I  was  joined  by  my 
brilliant  colleague,  and  old  friend,  Campbell  Clarke, 
w^ho,  for  many  years,  had  been  the  resident  correspon- 
dent of  the  Daily  Telegraph  in  Paris.  He  had  come 
out  as  political  special  correspondent  of  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph to  gather  up  all  available  intelligence  from  day 
to  day,  and  transmit  telegrams  to  Fleet  Street ;  while 
I  was  to  write  special  articles,  of  two  or  three  columns 
each,  descriptive  of  life  and  manners  at  Stamboul  and 
Pera.  Campbell  Clarke  had  come  from  Paris,  through 
Italy  to  Brindisi ;  whence  he  had  taken  steamer  to 
Corfu,  and  had  so  steamed  through  the  Sea  of  Mar- 
mora to  Constantinople  ;  his  travelling  companion  from 
the  Ionian  Islands  being  a  Turkish  Pasha,  whose  main 
object  in  life  appeared  to  be  to  smoke,  quaff  dry  cham- 
pagne, and  play  ecarte,  at  which  game  he  was  keenest 
of  hands. 


2/0  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

Constantinople  has  become  during-  the  last  few  years 
a  place  of  habitual  resort  for  trippers ;  and  I  almost 
wonder  that  the  globe-trotter  has  not  long  since  ab- 
breviated the  name  of  the  City  of  the  Sultan  into  "  Con  " 
or  "  Stan."  At  all  events  I  am  not  about  to  weary 
you  with  descriptions  of  the  mosques,  the  bazaars,  the 
Valley  of  Sweet  Waters,  the  Atmeidan,  the  palaces, 
and  so  forth.  I  wrote  a  good  many  letters  in  the  Daily 
Telegraph  about  the  lions  of  Constantinople,  but  I  have 
never  cared  to  republish  them  ;  cognisant  as  I  am  of 
their  immense  inferiority  to  the  description  of  Stam- 
boul  in  the  "  Pencillings  b)'  the  Way  "  of  the  American, 
Nathaniel  Parker  Willis  ;  to  "  The  City  of  the  Sultan  " 
of  Miss  Pardoe ;  and  in  especial  to  the  "  Constantinople  " 
of  Theophile  Gautier.  I  find,  however,  a  few  memo- 
randa in  my  note-book  which  may  not  be  wholly  with- 
out interest.  On  the  tramway  running  from  Pera  to 
Galata,  I  was  much  amused  by  the  circumstance  that 
there  was  a  harem  on  board  each  car  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  the  Turkish  ladies.  Next  I  find  that  on  the 
occasion  of  my  first  visit  to  the  mosque  of  the  Divine 
Wisdom,  commonly  called  St.  Sophia,  the  Turkish 
janitor,  for  the  consideration  of  a  meeljidic,  obligingly, 
with  a  long  stick,  knocked  down  from  the  walls  a  hand- 
ful of  the  original  Byzantine  mosaics,  which  I  carefully 
placed  in  an  envelope  and  brought  home  with  me.  It 
was  most  Vandalic  on  my  part  to  make  such  a  pur- 
chase, but  what  would  you  have  when  one  has  a  craze 
for  collecting?  Most  of  us  are  from  time  to  time  Van- 
dals, Goths,  Visigoths,  Ostrogoths,  and  Huns  into  the 
bargain.  When  I  reached  England  I  went  to  a  chemist 
and  druggist  and  bought  sixpennyworth  of  "jujubes," 
which  in  size  and  colour — abating  the  gilt  obverse — 
closely  resembled  the  tcsserce  of  dull  glass,  with  which 
the  Emperor  Justinian  the  Great  adorned  the  walls  of 
the  Agia  Sofia.     I  placed  the  "  jujubes  "  in  one  pill-box, 


IN   THE   CITY   OF   THE   SULTAN  27 1 

and  the  tessercz  gilded,  faces  downwards,  in  the  other. 
I  asked  a  succession  of  lady-friends  to  tell  me  which  set  of 
cubes  were  thirteen  hundred  years  old,  and  which  were 
made  the  day  before  yesterday.  In  five  cases  out  of  six 
the  ladies  declared  the  jujubes  to  be  the  antiques  ;  but  the 
accurate  guesser  was  a  widow  and  consequently  crafty. 
She  shook  up  the  tessercB  in  the  box  and  said  "  glass," 
and  then  she  felt  the  jujubes  and  remarked  "gum." 

As  regards  the  Dancing  Dervishes,  I  look  upon  them 
simply  as  a  gang  of  teetotum-like  humbugs  ;  but  I  re- 
member that,  as  Campbell  Clarke  and  I  emerged  from 
their  mosque,  we  were  fiercely  scowled  upon  and  even 
rudely  hustled  by  groups  of  softas  or  theological  stu- 
dents in  long  caftans  and  voluminous  white  turbans. 
It  was  these  young  gentlemen  who  were  mainly  instru- 
mental in  fomenting  the  discontent  which  culminated 
in  the  deposition  of  the  hapless  Sultan  Abdul  Aziz. 
The  Howling  Dervishes  interested  me  a  little  more 
than  the  dancing  ones  had  done:  first  because  at  least 
two  of  these  professors  of  ululation  appeared  to  have 
a  genuine  epileptic  fit  during  the  performance  ;  and 
next  because  it  was  with  the  very  greatest  difficulty 
that  I  could  restrain  m3^self  from  howling  with  might 
and  main,  "Amalaiaoo!  Amala'iaoo !  Amalaiaoo!  Oo! 
Oo  !  Oo  !  "  Try  it  yourself — not  in  your  bath — but 
rocking  your  body  backwards  and  forwards  in  a  rock- 
ing-chair. If  you  are  nervous  I  will  go  bail  that  you 
will  begin  to  howl  involuntarily  before  you  are  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  older. 

The  dogs  of  Stamboul  interested  me  mightily.  The 
vagrant  curs  that  hung  about  the  Legations  in  the 
Grand  Rue  de  Pera  were  almost  invariably  mangy, 
but  that  was  due  not  to  starvation  but  to  overfeeding  ; 
those  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  British  and  Russian 
Embassies  being  the  mangiest  and  the  plumpest.  No 
little  sensation  was  caused  during  my  stay  by  an  inci- 


2/2  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

dent  which  would  have  delio^hted  that  eminent  friend 
of  the  canine  race,  the  Spectator  newspaper.  A  French 
Consul-General  and  his  wife  both  died  within  a  few 
hours  of  each  other  of  fever.  The  Consul's  effects 
were  sold  by  auction ;  but  nobody  cared  to  buy  a  poor 
little  white  poodle,  whose  woolly  frills  and  tufts,  pink 
barrel,  and  coal-black  muzzle  I  had  often  admired 
while  his  master  was  in  the  flesh.  The  unfortunate 
little  beast  was  left  homeless  to  wander  about  in  shift- 
less misery  ;  and  he  fell  among  a  pack  of  pariah  dogs. 
Had  they  followed  the  established  canons  of  their  race, 
these  four-footed  gitanos  would  have  immediately  pro- 
ceeded to  tear  the  little  white  poodle  to  pieces  and 
devour  him  ;  but  it  singularly  and  beautifully  hap- 
pened that  the  bow-wow  singari  adopted  the  homeless 
waif  and  stray,  scouted  for  food  for  him,  and  made 
much  of  him,  generally. 

He  was  pointed  out  to  me  one  day  near  the  Swed- 
ish Legation,  quite  unshaven  and  unshorn,  as  grubby 
as  a  sweep,  but  looking  quite  happy  and  comfortable. 
This  act  of  toleration,  however,  must  be  considered  as 
wholly  exceptional  and  almost  phenomenal  on  the  part 
of  the  pariah  dogs.  I  think  that  Messrs.  Pickford  had 
an  agency  at  Pera ;  at  least,  I  remember  some  parcel- 
van  belonging  to  an  English  company,  which  in  its 
perambulations  was  "  bossed,"  so  to  speak,  by  a  little 
black-and-tan  English  terrier,  which  from  the  summit 
of  a  mound  of  merchandise  used  to  bark  with  o-enuine 
terrier  impudence  impartially  at  Turks  and  Greeks 
and  Franks  alike.  The  vagrant  dogs  of  Pera  would 
go  half  crazy  when  they  caught  sight  of  this  bumptious 
little  animal ;  they  howled,  they  yelled,  they  yelped, 
they  threw  themselves  on  their  backs  and  rolled  about 
with  their  paws  in  the  air  in  impotent  rage  ;  while  the 
little  terrier,  from  his  proud  eminence,  looked  down 
upon  his  poor  relations,  yapping  contemptuously. 


IN   THE   CITY   OF   THE   SULTAN  273 

At  the  northern  extremity  of  the  Golden  Horn, 
beyond  the  Port  of  Commerce  and  the  Port  of  War, 
there  is  a  suburb  called  Eyoub,  famed  for  an  ancient 
mosque  of  that  name.  An  English  friend  of  mine  was 
very  curious  to  see  the  mosque  in  question,  but  he  was 
warned  by  a  Turkish  acquaintance  that  the  outcast 
dogs  of  Ej^oub,  not  being  pensioners  of  any  foreign 
Legation,  were  as  exceeding  fierce  as  those  humans 
who  used  to  come  out  of  the  tombs,  of  old.  The 
Eyoub  dogs,  added  the  Effendi,  were  supposed  to  be 
able  to  detect  a  Frank  at  the  first  sniff,  and  might 
prove  very  troublesome  customers.  However,  my 
friend  was  not  to  be  deterred  from  his  purpose  by  the 
reputed  ferocity  of  the  dogs  ;  so  with  an  English  com- 
panion he  hired  a  caique  and  was  swiftly  rowed  to  the 
place  of  his  destination.  He  had  no  sooner  landed 
than  he  was  surrounded  by  a  herd  of  angrily  barking 
dogs.  It  happened  that  he  was  an  expert  in  canine 
characteristics  ;  so,  seeing  either  a  post  or  the  trunk 
of  a  tree,  I  forget  which,  standing  conveniently  close 
by,  he  coolly  sat  down  and  looked  at  the  dogs,  which 
immediately  followed  his  example  by  squatting  on 
their  haunches  in  an  irregular  semi-circle  and  looking 
at  him.  He  then  rose  and  composedl}-  walked  to  an 
adjacent  baker's  shop — the  dogs  quietl}^  following  him 
— and  cleared  out  the  baker's  stock  at  an  expense  of 
about  half-a-crown  ;  then  he  and  his  companion  broke 
up  the  loaves  and  distributed  them  among  the  hungry 
pack  ;  after  which  act  of  hospitality  the  two  English- 
men, quite  unmolested,  went  about  their  business.  "  A 
beau  inentir  qui  vient  dc  loin,''  says  the  proverb.  I  don't 
think  that  my  friend  in  telling  me  this  story  drew  a 
longer  bow  than  is  from  time  to  time  drawn  by  travel- 
ling toxophilites  ;  and  I  own,  myself,  that  the  simper 
of  incredulity  has  sometimes  trembled  on  my  lips  when 
1  have  heard  the  pilgrim  to  the  mosque  of  Eyoub  de- 
n.— 18 


274  'LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

clare  that  when  he  and  his  companion  returned  to  the 
landing-stage  they  were  followed  by  a  friendly  escort 
of  pariah  dogs,  who,  as  the  caique  pushed  off,  wagged 
their  tails  sympathetically  and  uttered  a  succession  of 
amicable  barks,  as  if  to  say,  "  Come  again  soon,  Giaour, 
and  Allah  be  good  to  you." 

I  found  Antonio  Gallenga,  as  representative  of  the 
Times,  installed  at  the  Hotel  Royal  with  his  wife  and 
daughter.  Mrs.  Gallenga,  who  was  passionately  fond 
of  dogs,  had  taken  one  particular  colony  of  pariahs 
under  her  protection ;  and  one  of  the  female  vagrants 
being  in  an  interesting  condition,  the  kind  English  lady 
fitted  up  quite  a  comfortable  little  dormitory  in  a  tomb 
in  a  disused  cemetery  close  to  the  hotel,  where  the 
poor  beast  could  lie  soft  and  warm,  and  bring  forth 
her  young  in  peace. 

Special  correspondents  of  the  newspapers  abounded 
at  Constantinople  just  then.  Mr.  Pearce,  an  English 
barrister,  was  the  resident  correspondent  of  the  Daily 
News;  and  as  a  colleague  he  had  a  distinguished 
American  journalist,  the  late — alas  !  the  late — Alex- 
ander Mac  Gahan.  A  brilliant,  various,  indefatigable 
writer,  a  thorough  cosmopolitan,  and  as  thoroughly  a 
prince  of  good  fellows  was  Alexander  Mac  Gahan,  who 
in  his  capacity  as  a  journalist  had  been  almost  every- 
where and  seen  almost  everything.  He  was  an  admir- 
able type  of  the  travelled,  unprejudiced  gentleman. 
Courtesy  was  to  him  not  only  a  duty  and  a  habit  but 
a  pleasure ;  hotel  waiters  bustled  gaily  about  to  do  his 
bidding ;  and  at  the  villanous  music-hall  at  Pera  (it 
was  a  variety  show  combined  with  a  gambling-house) 
the  eyes  of  the  German  leader  of  a  band  composed  of 
two  cracked  fiddles,  an  asthmatic  cornet-a-piston,  and  a 
stammering  piano,  the  keys  of  which  had  turned  yellow 
like  the  teeth  of  an  old  horse,  used  to  sparkle  with 
gratification  when  Mac  Gahan,  addressing  him  as  Herr 


IN   THE   CITY   OF  THE   SULTAN  2/5 

Kapell-Meister,  would  beg  him  to  let  his  clever  artists 
— who  also  grinned  with  satisfaction  at  being  so  quali- 
fied— play  the  air  of  the  "  Sire  de  Framboisy  "  over 
again. 

Mac  Gahan  had  only  one  fad,  or  crotchet,  or  "  lune  " 
— call  it  which  you  will.  He  did  not  care  for  the 
Turks ;  he  did  not  like  the  Greeks,  and  he  scouted  the 
proposal  of  one  of  us  that  the  Eastern  Question  might 
be  settled  if  Constantinople  were  made  a  federal  city, 
to  be  garrisoned  in  equal  proportions  by  the  troops  of 
the  Great  Powers,  just  as  Frankfort  was  to  a  limited  ex- 
tent before  the  divorce  of  Austria  from  Germany,  and 
the  subsequent  establishment  of  a  united  German  Em- 
pire. Mac  Gahan's  solution  was  formulated  in  just  four 
words :  "  Alfred,  King  of  Byzantium."  He  yearned 
for  the  Padishah  to  be  relegated  to  his  Asiatic  domin- 
ions, and  for  European  Turkey,  including  the  Princi- 
palities, to  be  erected  into  one  monarchy  under  the 
rule  of  the  then  Duke  of  Edinburgh.  "  Alfred,  King 
of  Byzantium,"  was  his  pet  watchword. 

I  am  like  the  Friar  in  Romeo  and  Juliet.  These  old 
feet  stumble  at  graves.  I  call  to  mind,  among  our 
Constantinople  friends,  another  brilliant  American, 
Eugene  Schuyler,  journalist,  author,  and  diplomatist. 
In  1876  he  was  the  United  States  Consul-General  at 
Pera,  and  was  afterwards  to  fill  important  diplomatic 
missions.  That  he  was  a  versatile  linguist  was  only 
one  of  his  many  attainments  ;  and  he  will  be  remem. 
bered  I  hope  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  for  his 
scholarlike  and  impartial  life  of  Peter  the  Great. 
Staying  with  Schuyler  was  a  young  American  gentle- 
man who  had  come  to  Constantinople  in  order  to  study 
Byzantine  archaeology  ;  but  I  am  afraid  that  in  our 
merry  set  less  attention  was  paid  to  researches  into  the 
architecture  and  iconography  of  the  Lower  Empire 
than  to  holloaing  and  singing  of  anthems,  and  playing 


2/6  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

the  fascinating  but  fatal  game  of  poker.  One  day  it 
occurred  to  Schuyler  to  get  up  a  narghild — smoking 
party.  Now  the  narghile,  the  pipe  with  the  convo- 
luted tube,  and  the  smoke  from  the  bowl  of  which 
passes  through  a  cut-glass  vessel  containing  perfumed 
water  before  it  reaches  the  lips  of  the  smoker,  has  al- 
most entirely  gone  out  of  fashion  in  Constantinople. 
Even  the  chibouck,  the  pipe  with  the  long  cherry-stick 
stem  and  the  bowl  of  porous  terra-cotta,  has  practically 
vanished  ;  and  when  you  call  nowadays  on  a  Turkish 
pasha  you  are  regaled,  not  with  coffee  and  pipes,  but 
with  coffee  and  cigarettes.  Schuyler  had  the  octagonal 
hall  of  his  house  fitted  up  as  a  divan  ;  and  about  half 
a  dozen  of  us  sat  gravely  on  our  haunches  a  la  tnrqiie. 
The  nargJiilc's  had  been  duly  "  cooked  "  in  the  kitchen 
— I  mean  the  servants  had  filled  and  lighted  the  to- 
bacco and  tested  the  free  passage  of  the  smoke  through 
the  agate  mouthpieces.  I  always  abhorred  the  taste 
of  the  nastily-sophisticated  tobacco  with  which  the 
Turkish  narghilt^  :xnd  the  Indian  hookah  are  fed;  so  I 
contented  myself  with  puffing  out  the  smoke  as  soon 
as  it  reached  my  lips ;  the  others  inhaled  the  so-called 
"  aromatic  "  fumes. 

I  noticed  that  the  complexion  of  my  friend,  the  stu- 
dent of  Byzantine  archaeology,  had  undergone  in  the 
course  of  about  eight  minutes  several  changes.  First 
he  turned  very  red,  then  a  pale  yellow,  then  a  dull 
lead  colour — the  hue  which  the  countenance  of  Napo- 
leon III.  was  wont  to  assume  at  critical  moments. 
Then  his  features  were  suffused  by  a  tint  in  which 
green  strove  for  mastery  wnth  blue,  and  eventually  he 
turned  a  pasty  white.  "  How  are  you  getting  on,  old 
chappie  ? "  asked  Eugene  Schuyler  encouragingly. 
"  Oh !  splendidly,"  replied  or  rather  gasped  the  young 
American.  "  It's  delicious,  it's  entrancing,  I  feel  in 
Heaven  and  I  don  t  think  I  shall  live  Jive  minutes^'  mur- 


IN   THE   CITY   OF  THE   SULTAN  2']^ 

murinor  which  last  words  he  tumbled  off  the  divan 
and  rolled  on  to  the  marble  pavement.  The  young 
gentleman  being  an  American  citizen  I  felt  that  it 
would  be,  as  a  British  subject,  ultra  vires  on  my  part 
to  interfere  with  him  ;  but  Mac  Gahan  and  Schuyler, 
not  being  troubled  by  such  scruples,  did  their  best  to 
assist  him  by  kneeling  on  his  chest  and  pumping  the 
fumes  which  he  had  inhaled  out  of  his  mouth,  his  ears, 
and  his  nostrils,  and  by  dashing  cold  water  over  his 
face,  and  administering  judicious  "  nips  "  of  Bourbon 
whiskey  within. 

Another  old  ally — I  need  scarcely  say  that  he  has 
also  joined  the  majority — turned  up  in  the  person  of 
Frank  Ives  Scudamore,  late  of  the  General  Post  Office, 
St.  Martin's-le-Grand,  from  which  service  he  had  re- 
tired on  a  pension  ;  after  having  with  astonishing  suc- 
cess carried  out  the  extension  of  the  postal  telegraph 
system  throughout  England.  He  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Edmund  Yates  ;  and  besides  his  great  official 
capacity  he  possessed  a  great  deal  of  literary  culture, 
and  used  to  write  many  of  the  diverting  Anglo-Latin 
macaronic  verses  in  Punch.  Scudamore,  in  1876,  had 
been  commissioned  by  the  Turkish  Government  to 
superintend  that  department  of  the  Ottoman  Post  Of- 
fice which  dealt  with  the  reception  and  transmission 
of  the  European  mails  ;  but  in  this  position  he  some- 
what resembled  the  fifth  wheel  to  a  coach  ;  or,  to  put 
the  case  more  precisely,  he  might  have  been  likened 
to  a  wheel  without  anv  coach  at  all  attached  to  it ; 
seeing  that  the  English  merchants  and  bankers  at 
Constantinople  laboured  under  the  singular  impres- 
sion that  the  Turkish  Government  had  a  cabinet  noir 
attached  to  their  General  Post  Office,  and  that  the 
English  mails  were  systematically  opened  and  read 
before  they  reached  the  proper  recipients  thereof. 
Thus  being   warned   of   this  sportive  practice  on  the 


2/8  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

part  of  the  True  Believers,  I  used  to  take  my  letters 
to  the  office  of  a  certain  English  agency  at  Galata, 
where  I  also  received  such  correspondence  as  came 
out  for  me.  I  hope  that  the  Turkish  Government 
punctually  paid  Scudamore.  He  would  certainly 
have  earned  his  salary  if  he  had  had  the  opportunity 
of  earning  it  to  any  appreciable  extent. 

I  cannot  pass  by  in  silence  three  notable  Englishmen 
who  joined  our  little  circle  at  the  club  in  the  Grand 
Rue  de  Pera.  First  there  was  Hobart  Pasha — blunt, 
burly,  and  bearded,  some  time  a  post-captain  in  the 
British  navy  ;  afterwards  in  the  American  Civil  War, 
the  boldest  of  blockade  runners  ;  and  in  the  winter  of 
1876  holding  high  rank  but  a  somewhat  phantom  com- 
mand in  the  Turkish  fieet.  Secondly,  I  may  mention 
Baker  Pasha,  who  had  commanded  the  Turkish  gen- 
darmerie, and  had  also  held  an  important  command  in 
the  Turkish  army.  Poor  Pasha  !  He  had  been  that 
Colonel  Valentine  Baker,  known  to  all  military  men  as 
one  of  the  most  brilliantly  efficient  staff  officers  in  the 
British  army.  He  had  lost  ever3'thing — grade,  repu- 
tation, social  status,  and  some  seven  thousand  pounds 
sterling  which  he  had  paid  for  his  commissions, 
through  one  solitary  miserable  act  of  indiscretion, 
which  might  well  have  been  punished  by  a  fine  of 
/"50.  In  recalling  the  story  of  the  woeful  collapse 
of  this  brave,  honourable,  injudicious,  and  most  un- 
fortunate gentleman,  there  is  only  one  bright  ray  to 
illumine  a  tale  of  otherwise  unmitigated  darkness. 
That  ray  shines  on  his  true  wife,  who  adhered  to  him 
in  his  misfortunes  and  comforted  him  in  his  captivity. 
The  third  distinguished  Englishman  whom  I  met  at 
Stamboul  was  the  late  Colonel  Fred  Burnaby,  a  pala- 
din in  arms,  and  Admirable  Crichton  in  his  knowledge 
of  languages,  handsome,  highly  bred,  and  a  charming 
conversationalist,  but  who  always  seemed  to  me  to  be 


IN   THE   CITY   OF   THE   SULTAN  279 

somewhat  of  a  disappointed  man,  and  to  be  weighed 
down  by  some  hidden  sorrow.  He  joined  Lord  Wolse- 
ley's  force  in  Egypt  as  a  volunteer  ;  put  himself  in 
the  forefront  of  the  battle  and  got  killed.  I  believe 
that  my  friend  Mr.  H.  W.  Lucy  first  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Fred  Burnaby  in  a  balloon ;  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  him  for  the  first  time  at  the  mess 
of  the  Royal  Horse  Guards  Blue  at  their  barracks  in 
Albany  Street.  When  I  came  to  Constantinople  he 
was  on  the  eve  of  starting  on  one  of  his  equestrian 
Central  Asian  expeditions  ;  and  we  saw  him  off  from 
his  hotel  at  Scutari,  accompanied  by  the  trusty  trooper 
who  had  been  his  henchman  in  former  journeys. 

But  you  may  well  ask  by  this  time  what  the  object 
was  of  my  sudden  Hegira  from  the  north  to  the  south 
of  Russia  and  appearance  at  Constantinople.  It  was 
all  on  account  of  that  confounded  Eastern  Question. 
I  had  seen  the  Russian  army  organising  in  their  thou- 
sands ;  and  I  knew,  so  far  as  a  journalist  liable  to  error 
could  know,  that  war  between  Russia  and  Turkey 
would  inevitably  break  out  in  the  early  spring.  To 
avert,  if  possible,  this  war  the  British  Government  had 
despatched  to  Constantinople  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury 
as  Ambassador-Extraordinary  ;  and  His  Excellency  ar- 
rived accompanied  by  the  Marchioness,  and  attended 
by  a  numerous  and  brilliant  staff  of  Foreign  Office 
officials  and  attaches.  The  resident  Ambassador  to  the 
Sublime  Porte  was  Sir  Henry  Elliot ;  and  at  his  table 
I  met  a  remarkable  functionary,  Mr.  William  White, 
who,  at  the  time  I  speak  of,  was  Consul-General  at  the 
capital  of  one  of  the  Principalities.  Lord  Salisbury, 
indeed,  had  summoned  to  Constantinople  the  elite  of 
the  British  consular  body  from  South-eastern  Europe 
and  those  portions  of  the  Levant  which  bordered  on 
the  Ottoman  dominions ;  and  among  these  I  especially 
remember  Mr.  Blunt — he   was  afterwards  knighted — 


280  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

who  was  Consul  at  Salonica,  and  Mr.  Reade,  who  had 
been  Consul  at  Tunis. 

This  last-named  gentleman,  to  my  agreeable  sur- 
prise, received  me  in  a  most  amicable  manner.  I  sub- 
sequently learnt  that  he  was  the  son  of  Sir  Thomas 
Reade,  the  military  secretary  of  Sir  Hudson  Lowe 
while  Governor  of  St.  Helena.  I  have  been  a  hard 
student  of  the  Napoleonic  legend  and  the  Napo- 
leonic history  to  boot  ever  since  I  was  a  lad  ;  and 
although  I  have  read  Mr.  Forsyth's  "  Captivity  of  Na- 
poleon," over  and  over  again,  I  have  never  been  able 
to  conquer  my  dislike  for  the  character  of  Sir  Hudson 
Lowe,  who  seems  to  me  to  have  been,  although  a 
strictly  just  and  conscientious  man,  something  very 
like  what  the  Americans  call  "  a  mean  cuss."  The  late 
Sir  Emerson  Tennant,  who  knew  him  well,  used  to 
say  that  on  first  meeting  Sir  Hudson  he  reminded  him 
of  the  etching  by  "  Phiz  "  of  Ralph  Nickleby.  At  the 
same  time,  I  am  ready  to  grant  that  Napoleon  was  the 
most  troublesome  and  quarrelsome  of  captives,  and 
that  he  outrageously  abused  and  vilified  the  Governor, 
who  certainly  showed  great  forbearance  in  not  resent- 
ing the  insults  of  his  vituperative  charge. 

It  chanced  that  for  several  years  I  enjoyed  the 
friendship  of  Sir  Hudson's  eldest  son.  General  Edward 
Lowe,  who  had  been  at  Lucknow  during  the  Mutiny  ; 
and  this  gallant  gentleman  told  me  many  stories  of 
Sir  Hudson's  amiability  in  private  life.  I  think  the 
Governor  had  "  Bonaparte  on  the  brain,"  and  that  it 
was  his  carking  apprehension  that  he  should  wake  up 
one  morning  and  find  the  caged  bird  flown  that  made 
him  worry  his  captive  with  petty  restrictions  and 
regulations. 

Again,  I  was  a  frequent  correspondent  of  good  old 
Colonel  Basil  Jackson,  who  had  been  an  aide-de-camp 
at  large  at  Waterloo,  and  who,  by  the  caprice  of  fate, 


IN   THE   CITY   OF   THE   SULTAN  28 1 

was  afterwards  in  garrison  at  St.  Helena  when  Na- 
poleon was  at  Longwood.  He,  too,  was  a  staunch 
advocate  of  Sir  Hudson.  Some  time  before  I  went  to 
the  East  there  appeared  in  some  London  magazine  an 
article  full  of  the  idlest  tarradiddles  about  Napoleon's 
imprisonment,  and,  as  I  thought,  reflecting  most  un- 
justly on  Sir  Hudson  Lowe.  I  answered  that  article 
and  exposed  its  unveracity,  either  in  Temple  Bar  or  in 
Belgravia.  It  happened  that  my  article  came  under 
the  notice  of  Mr.  Reade  while  he  was  Consul  at  Tunis. 
I  had  more  than  once  mentioned  his  father's  name  not 
unfavourably  in  the  paper  in  question,  and  which  he 
had  reprinted  at  Gibraltar ;  hence  his  friendly  wel- 
come when  I  met  him  at  Pera. 


CHAPTER    LV 

THE   TURKISH   CONSTITUTION 

These  notes  of  our  little  society  at  Constantinople 
would  not  be  complete  did  I  not  mention  that  the 
journalistic  section  thereof  also  comprised  a  young, 
handsome,  and  clever  Frenchman,  who  spoke  English 
quite  as  fluently  as  he  did  his  native  tongue.  His 
name  was  Barere  ;  and  at  the  time  he  was  a  proscribed 
Communist,  under  sentence  of  death  in  contuinaciain. 
His  Excellency  Monsieur  Barere  is  now  Minister-Ple- 
nipotentiary of  the  French  Republic  at  some  European 
Court.  So  we  all  have  our  ups  and  downs,  and  as  Mr. 
Thackeray  used  to  say,  "  It's  the  lot  of  one  man  to  be 
handled  by  the  hangman,  and  of  another  to  be  High 
Sheriff  and  to  ride  in  a  golden  coach."  The  Jouriial 
des  Ddbats  was  also  represented  at  Constantinople  by  a 
tall,  dark,  somewhat  bald  gentleman,  who  was  a  con- 
firmed misanthropist,  and  whose  views  and  opinions 
as  regarded  the  Eastern  Question,  the  city  of  Constan- 
tinople, and  the  cuisine  of  the  Pera  hotels  was  summed 
up  in  the  single  but  expressive  woi-d  poiirriUire.  Ham- 
let discovered  long  ago  that  there  was  something  rot- 
ten in  the  state  of  Denmark,  but  what  were  you  to  do 
with  a  gentleman  who,  when  you  talked  of  the  last 
dinner  at  the  English  Embassy,  or  the  last  reception  at 
the  Russian  one,  or  the  last  news  from  Paris  or  Lon- 
don, or  the  humours  of  the  Bezesteen,  or  the  gossip  of 
the  Pera  and  Galata  clubs,  merely  replied,  *'  Monsieur, 
ccst  line  pour  r  it  lire  !  "  I  do  not  know  exactly  to  what 
section  of  our  coterie  belonged  Mr.  Hormuzd  Rassam, 


THE   TURKISH   CONSTITUTION  283 

whom  we  sportively  called  the  Heathen  Chaldee,  and 
whom  I  always  associated  with  that  blessed  word 
Mesopotamia.  At  all  events,  we  got  him  to  admit 
that  he  knew  a  great  deal  about  Nebuchadnezzar,  and 
that  he  was  aware  that  that  monarch  during  his  salad 
season  was  the  first  epicure  who  discovered  that  aspar- 
agus was  edible.  Mr.  Hormuzd  Rassam,  as  most  peo- 
ple know,  had  rendered  most  valuable  services  to  Mr. 
(afterwards  Sir  Henry)  Layard  in  the  course  of  his 
great  explorations  at  Nineveh  ;  he  had  also  been  one 
of  the  captives  of  King  Theodore  of  Abyssinia,  and, 
with  the  missionaries,  had  spent  some  months  in  a 
dungeon,  and  in  chains ;  but,  as  he  put  it,  his  fetters 
caused  him  no  great  inconvenience  :  he  always  had 
enough  to  eat  and  drink,  and  was,  as  a  rule,  in  favour 
with  Theodore.  Whether  he  had  come  to  Constanti- 
nople in  a  journalistic  or  a  diplomatic  capacity,  I  know 
not ;  but  he  was  always  ready  and  alert ;  he  knew  all 
the  Turkish  shopkeepers  in  the  bazaars,  and  rendered 
us  considerable  services  when  we  were  curio-huntinsf. 
He  seemed  to  be  in  correspondence  with  all  man- 
ner of  Oriental  folk,  and  one  morning  he  showed  us  a 
telegram  which  he  had  just  received  from  a  corre- 
spondent, a  merchant  at  Lake  Van  in  Armenia.  The 
despatch  ran  somewhat  to  this  effect :  "  Turkish 
Bashi-Bazouks  raided  bazaar.  Murdering  women  and 
children.  Collect  all  debts.  "  The  next  morning  he 
brought  another  telegram,  worded  :  "  Governor  of  Van 
quite  powerless.  Troops  threaten  to  burn  the  town. 
Pay  nobody."  From  these  data  Campbell  Clarke 
thought  that  he  could  construct  a  very  telling  political 
telegram  ;  so  he  sat  down  and  began  somewhat  to  this 
effect:  "Turkish  irregular  soldiery  have  committed 
great  excesses  at  Lake  Van."  "  No,  no  !  "  exclaimed  a 
crafty  Levantine  Consul  when  Campbell  read  out  the 
telegram.      "  That    will    never    do.     It    should    run, 


284  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

'  Turkish  irregular  soldiery,  instigated  by  Russian  in- 
trigues, have,'  etc.,  etc." 

Among  the  diplomatists  who  day  after  day  met  in 
conference  at  the  Turkish  Ministry  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
most  conspicuous,  after  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury,  was 
the  Russian  Ambassador-Extraordinary,  General  Igna- 
tieff,  who  in  society  was  a  most  affable  and  pleasant 
gentleman,  with  somewhat  weak  eyes.  I  ventured  to 
remind  him  that  I  had  had  the  honour  to  have  an  inter- 
view with  his  father,  who  in  1856  was  Governor  of  St. 
Petersburg.  The  ambassador  evinced  some  curiosity 
'to  know  what  was  the  purport  of  the  interview  in 
question.  "  Well,  Excellency,"  1  replied,  "  it  certainly 
did  not  amount  to  much."  In  the  days  of  which  I 
speak  it  was  compulsory  for  a  foreigner  who  wished  to 
leave  the  Russian  capital  first  to  advertise  three  times 
in  the  official  Gazette  his  intention  of  going  away  ;  so 
that  if  he  owed  anybody  any  money  his  creditors  might 
at  once  demand  their  due  ;  then  he  had  to  present  in 
person  a  petition  to  the  Governor  of  St.  Petersburg 
for  leave  and  license  to  depart ;  and  this  being  ac- 
corded, he  was  referred  to  the  Grand  Master  of  Police, 
who  eventually  granted  him  the  coveted  passport. 

All  this  meant  a  sad  waste  of  time,  and  the  distribu- 
tion of  a  considerable  number  of  rouble  notes  among 
hungry  employes.  My  interview  with  the  Governor 
lasted  precisely  one  minute.  All  petitions  had  to  be 
handed  in  by  two  o'clock ;  and  I  arrived  at  three  min- 
utes to  two  :  a  circumstance  which  the  General  tacitl}' 
noticed  by  pulling  out  and  consulting  his  watch.  Then 
I  made  him  the  profoundest  of  bows  and  presented  the 
petition,  which  His  Excellency  received  with  a  slight 
and  stately  inclination  of  the  head.  Then  another 
fifteen  seconds  passed,  leaving  me  in  comic  uncertaint}^ 
as  to  what  was  to  come  next.  When  the  minute  was 
up  the  General  said,  "  ^/^  bien ;  vous  Vaves  presentee^'' 


THE   TURKISH   CONSTITUTION  285 

the  English  equivalent  of  which  was,  I  at  once  in- 
ferred, "  Go  about  your  business."  I  went  about  it, 
but  the  dvornik  in  the  hall  "  had  me  "  for  a  rouble  be- 
fore I  left  the  gubernatorial  bureau.  When  I  told  the 
story  to  General  Ignatieff  at  St.  Petersburg,  he 
smiled,  and  said  that  foreigners  often  found  it  some- 
what difificult  to  understand  Russian  manners  and  cus- 
toms. 

The  General  had  one  of  the  most  diplomatic  voices 
that  ever  I  listened  to.  I  mean  that  it  was  curiously 
capable  of  inflection.  Talleyrand's  voice,  we  are  told, 
was  harsh  and  strident ;  but  the  Prince  of  Beneven- 
tum  had  a  diplomatic  eye,  a  diplomatic  smile,  and  a 
diplomatic  shrug :  all  three  being  very  valuable  fac- 
tors in  statecraft.  In  society  at  Constantinople  Gen- 
eral Ignatieff  was  continually  saying,  "  Ma  mission  est 
terminc'c ;''  and  precisely  as  the  tone  of  his  voice 
seemed  grave  or  gay,  satisfied  or  discontented,  so 
did  the  quidnuncs  of  Constantinople  interpret  his  ut- 
terance to  mean  either  that  war  between  Russia  and 
Turkey  was  inevitable,  or  that  a  satisfactory  solution 
of  the  difficulties  between  the  two  Powers  had  been 
arrived  at. 

I  spoke  just  now  of  Mr.  Consul-General  William 
White.  Possibly  that  lamented  gentleman,  when  he 
was  summoned  to  Constantinople  by  Lord  Salisbury, 
had  no  more  notion  of  being  one  da}^  Her  Britannic 
Majesty's  Ambassador  at  the  Sublime  Porte  than  he 
had  of  becoming  Sheikh-ul-Islam.  It  was  simply 
through  his  vast  natural  capacity,  his  long  experi- 
ence of  affairs,  and  his  familiarity  with  the  Slavonic 
languages  that  he  rose  to  the  exalted  position  which 
he  held  at  the  time  of  his  death.  Lord  Salisbury 
must  have  been  a  rare  judge  of  character  and  abilities 
when  he  thus  promoted,  per  saltum,  as  it  were,  Mr. 
White  to  the  much -coveted   position  of  ambassador. 


286  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

Sir  William  White — whom  I  afterwards  met  in  Rome, 
at  the  Royal  Garden  Parties  in  London,  and  at  the 
house  of  Sutherland  Edwards,  who  had  known  him 
when  he  (Edwards)  was  special  correspondent  for 
the  Times,  when  Poland  was  in  a  state  of  insurrec- 
tion, and  Mr.  White  was  British  Consul  at  Danzic^ 
was  a  tall,  massively  built,  rugged-looking  gentleman, 
with  something  of  a  North  of  England  accent.  He 
dressed  very  plainly  ;  his  hat  had  an  abnormally  broad 
brim,  and  altogether,  abating  the  fact  that  he  did  not 
wear  a  red  waistcoat  and  top-boots,  he  reminded 
me  of  the  portraits  which  I  had  seen  of  William 
Cobbett.  He  lived,  as  most  of  us  journalists  lived, 
at  the  Hotel  de  Byzance ;  and  I  could  reckon  on 
most  mornings  on  a  visit  from  him,  just  after  the 
mail  from  the  West  came  in.  Noon  was  our  time  for 
the  dejeuner  a  la  foiircJiettc  ;  and,  odd  to  say,  when  we 
came  to  compare  notes  it  was  tolerably  sure  to  turn 
out  that  every  representative  of  an  English  or  for- 
eign newspaper  in  the  house  had  received  a  visit 
between  the  hours  of  eight  and  ten  a.m.  from  Mr. 
William  White. 

The  Christmas  of  1877  I  spent  at  the  picturesque 
suburb  of  Buyukdere  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Fawcett, 
then  Judge  of  the  Consular  Court  Pera ;  and  who 
now,  as  Sir  George  Fawcett,  fills  a  much  more  im- 
portant post.  His  kind  and  clever  wife  made  Camp- 
bell Clarke  and  myself  heartily  welcome ;  although 
the  good  lady  was  fain  to  apologise  for  what  might 
possibly  be  some  slight  shortcomings  in  the  plum  pud- 
ding. "  You  see,"  she  remarked,  "  that  I  had  a  Greek 
female  cook.  I  quarrelled  with  her  this  very  morn- 
ing; paid  her  her  wages  and  told  her  to  go;  where- 
upon she  cursed  Mr.  Fawcett  and  myself,  the  garden- 
er's baby,  and  my  little  toy  terrier.  She  departed,  as 
I  hoped,  for  good  ;  but  in  ten  minutes  she  returned  to 


THE  TURKISH   CONSTITUTION  28/ 

curse  the  plum  pudding,  which  was  already  tied  up 
for  boiling  ;  and  she  repeated  the  malediction  three 
times  and  with  the  greatest  solemnity."  Nothing, 
however,  turned  out  in  the  long  run  to  be  the  matter 
with  the  pudding ;  and  after  a  capital  dinner  we  sat 
down  to  play  whist,  a  game  at  which  I  have  taken  a 
hand  exactly  three  times  in  the  course  of  my  life  — 
once  in  Paris,  once  in  New  York,  and  once  on  the 
shores  of  the  Bosphorus.  I  do  not  thoroughly  under- 
stand any  one  of  the  rules  of  the  pastime  at  which 
Charles  Lamb's  Mrs.  Battle  was  and  Mr.  James  Payn 
is  so  consummate  an  expert ;  and  I  ascribe  it  simply 
to  the  kindness  of  a  sometimes  placable  Destiny  that  I 
have  never  revoked  nor  have  had  the  cards  thrown  at 
my  head  by  an  exasperated  partner. 

Before  I  left  Constantinople  I  witnessed  a  truly  sin- 
gular ceremony.  This  was  the  proclamation  of  the 
new  Turkish  Constitution,  devised,  I  should  say,  by 
the  wily  Ottoman  diplomatists  in  order  to  throw  dust 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Giaour  by  leading  him  to  believe 
that  Turkey  meant  in  right  earnest  to  adopt  the  lib- 
eral political  institutions  of  the  West.  Prior  to  the 
ceremony,  wdiich  took  place  at  the  Old  Seraglio,  we 
had  some  business  to  transact  at  the  Ministry  of  War ; 
and  as  a  student  of  Oriental  manners  I  found  it  some- 
what edifying  to  watch  the  way  in  which  His  Excel- 
lency Somebody  Pasha  partook  of  luncheon.  A  ser- 
vant brought  him  a  small  black  leather  valise,  which, 
being  opened,  disclosed  some  scraps  of  meat,  a  loaf 
of  bread,  some  cheese,  and  a  liberal  allowance  of 
dates  and  dried  raisins.  After  rapidly  consuming 
these  modest  viands,  the  Pasha  clapped  his  hands  ; 
and  another  servant  brought  him  a  basin  of  water  to 
wash  in.  Then,  having  carefully  dried  his  hands  with 
a  gold-embroidered  napkin.  His  Excellency  lighted  up 
another  cigarette  and  tranquilly  resumed  the  business 


288  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

which  he  was  transacting.  But  the  part  of  the  affair 
which  most  reminded  you  of  the  Arabian  Nights  was 
that,  while  the  Pasha  was  busy  with  his  luncheon,  the 
heavy  curtain  of  the  room  was  drawn  slightly  aside 
and  a  brown  and  skinny  palm  was  protruded  through 
the  cleft ;  while  a  voice  outside  whiningly  implored 
alms  in  the  name  of  the  Most  Merciful  Allah.  Surely 
it  must  have  been  the  beggar  who  had  solicited  char- 
ity from  King  Alfonso  on  the  railway  platform  at 
Madrid  transported  on  some  magician's  carpet  to 
Stamboul !  The  Pasha  took  no  notice  of  the  solicita- 
tion ;  and  the  hand  suddenly  disappeared  as  though  its 
owner  had  been  dragged  back  by  the  scruff  of  the 
neck ;  but  as  I  did  not  hear  any  subsequent  yells,  I  do 
not  think  that  they  administered  the  bastinado  to  the 
beggar. 

Shortly  after  noon  the  Constitution  was  formally 
promulgated  in  the  presence  of  a  host  of  officials  in 
resplendent  uniforms,  and  a  large  body  of  Ottoman 
troops,  who,  when  the  Grand  Vizier  had  finished  read- 
ing the  prodigiously  lengthy  document,  raised  a  unan- 
imous shout  of  ''  Amin!''  and  grounded  their  arms 
with  a  thunderous  clang.  Then  the  vast  assemblage 
of  grandees  in  gold -embroidered  tunics  and  fezzes 
somewhat  tumultuously  dispersed  ;  but  I  was  sorry 
afterwards  to  learn  that  it  had  not  fared  so  well  with 
our  dragoman  Constantine  Fenerli  as  it  had  done  with 
the  mendicant  who  begged  of  the  Pasha  at  luncheon. 
"  They  have  beaten  Fenerli,"  piteously  exclaimed  the 
descendant  of  Miltiades ;  "  men  with  large  sticks  have 
made  Fenerli's  back  sore.  How  could  Fenerli  help 
accidentallv  treadinsf  on  the  heels  of  an  Effendi  ?  "  He 
always  spoke  of  himself  in  the  third  person.  Thus, 
he  told  me  once  :  "  Fenerli's  family  was  rich  once  ;  he 
had  a  house  in  the  Fanarl;  his  sisters  were  richly 
dowered.     But  a  great  fire  broke  out,  and  sparks  fell 


THE   TURKISH   CONSTITUTION  289 


on  the  roof  of  Fenerli's  house,  and  in  half  an  hour  he 
was  ruined." 

About  the  beginning  of  March  I  left  Constantinople. 
All  things  considered,  I  should  not  care  about  return- 
ing to  it,  even  in  early  spring,  at  which  season  the 
climate  is  said  to  be  enchanting.  The  city  in  many 
respects  is  interesting,  but  it  is  desperately  uncomfort- 
able— so,  at  least,  it  was  in  my  time.  When  you  went 
out  to  a  dinner  or  a  reception  you  were  forced,  there 
being  no  hackney-carriages,  to  hire  a  sedan-chair,  a 
quaint  but  horribly  uncomfortable  conveyance.  Ex- 
cept at  the  Legations  and  at  the  houses  of  a  few  Brit- 
ish merchants,  there  Avas  nothing  fit  to  eat  at  Pera ; 
and  I  grew  so  weary  and  nauseated  with  the  cuisine  of 
the  table  d'hote  that,  to  the  horror  of  Campbell  Clarke, 
I  used  two  or  three  times  a  week  to  cross  the  Bridafe 
of  Boats  into  Stamboul  and  dine  at  a  Turkish  cook- 
shop — pilaf  kebobs,  pastry,  fried  fish,  and  so  forth  ; 
moistened  with  the  contents  of  a  flask  of  sherr3'-and- 
water  which  I  brought  with  me.  The  Moslem  fre- 
quenters of  this  "  slap-bang"  knew  that  I  was  an  Un- 
believer, but  they  never  interfered  with  me  ;  they 
would  even  point  out  in  a  dish  the  most  succulent  bits 
of  mutton  or  fowl  which  they  thought  I  should  find  to 
my  liking.  Every  Turk,  as  regards  good  manners,  is 
a  born  gentleman  ;  and  although  he  has  his  occasional 
outbursts  of  fanaticism,  he  is,  as  a  rule,  toleration  it- 
self when  compared  with  the  barbarous  Moor. 

An  American  missionary  at  Constantinople  told  me 
a  story  pleasantly  illustrative  of  the  usual  placability 
in  theological  matters  of  the  Osmanlis.  He  and  his 
wife  were  at  their  work  in  some  small  town  in  Asia 
Minor  ;  and,  with  the  permission  of  the  authorities, 
had  opened  a  day-school  for  girls,  but  these  proceed- 
ings raised  the  wrath  of  a  Turkish  santon,  or  Holy 
Man,  who  dwelt  in  a  disused  tank  opposite  the  school ; 
n. — 19 


290  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

and  who  manifested  his  disapproval  by  inciting  the 
ragged  boys  of  the  town  to  launch  volleys  of  stones  at 
the  missionary's  windows  and  follow  and  yelp  at  him 
and  his  wife  in  the  streets.  Forthwith  the  chief  of  the 
Ulema  or  Mohammedan  priesthood  convened  a  meeting 
of  the  principal  inhabitants  and  addressed  them  some- 
what to  this  effect :  "  I  know  this  Frank :  he  is  not  a 
follower  of  the  prophet;  but  I  also  know  that  he  acts 
up  to  the  precepts  of  his  own  creed ;  that  he  prays 
diligently,  and  is  always  ready  to  succour  the  sick  and 
relieve  the  poor.  Therefore,  perceiving  him  to  be  a 
man  of  God,  I  purpose  to  lead  him  round  the  town 
this  afternoon  on  my  own  donkey ;  and  woe  be  it  unto 
all  of  you  if  a  hair  of  his  head  or  that  of  his  wife  is 
harmed."  A  good  many  Christian  clergymen  might 
take  a  lesson  in  toleration  from  this  Turkish  Mollah. 

Just  before  we  left  there  came  into  harbour  a  splen- 
did American  corvette,  which,  sad  to  say,  was  totally 
wrecked  two  or  three  years  ago  in  a  storm  at  Apia,  in 
the  Samoan  Islands.  Eugene  Schuyler  took  us  on 
board,  and  the  captain  regaled  us  with  ample  hospi- 
tality, put  the  crew  through  gun-drill,  and  in  every 
way  showed  us  politeness.  Schuyler  asked  him  how 
he  had  managed  to  get  so  large  a  vessel  of  war  through 
the  Hellespont.  "  Oh,"  he  replied,  laughing,  "  I  got 
the  thing  off  well  enough.  Of  course,  the  Governor 
of  the  Dardanelles  remonstrated  and  pointed  out  that 
under  the  Capitulations  we  can  only  bring  a  gunboat 
through  the  Straits  ;  but  I  quietly  said,  '  Ifs  the  smallest 
7ue've  got ;'  so  he  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  we  had 
coffee  and  cigarettes,  and  I  came  up  here  right  away." 

Bidding  our  friends  in  Constantinople,  not  forgetting 
Mr.  Wrench,  the  British  Vice-Consul,  and  Mr.  Whit- 
taker,  the  editor  of  The  Levant  Herald,  a  hearty  fare- 
well, we  left  Pera  on  board  an  Austrian  Lloyd  for  the 
Piraeus,  where,  had  my  mind  behaved  properly,  I  ought 


THE   TURKISH   CONSTITUTION  291 

to  have  thought  of  all  the  wise  things  that  Socrates 
said  to  Plato.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  did  not  think  about 
the  son  of  Sophroniscus  at  all,  my  attention  being-  prin- 
cipally occupied  by  the  incessant  demands  of  the  boat- 
men and  luggage-porters  for  gratuities,  and  the  ex- 
ceptionally impudent  extortion  of  a  Greek  avtaxclates. 
As  there  was  something  the  matter  with  the  Piraeus 
and  Athens  Railway,  we  were  compelled  to  take  a  car- 
riage ;  being  very  careful  before  starting  to  make  a  bar- 
gain with  the  coachman,  who  drove  a  pair  of  spavined, 
shoulder-shotten  steeds  which  reminded  me  strongl3^ 
of  Homer  and  La  Marmora,  my  old  equine  friends  in 
Garibaldi's  campaign  in  the  Tyrol.  We  had  not,  how- 
ever, reached  half-way  before  the  crafty  eniochos  drew 
up  his  horses  and  insisted  on  having  more  drachmas 
in  addition  to  the  sum  stipulated  for.  We  had  nothing 
to  do  but  to  accede  to  his  demands.  But  when  the 
rascal — I  feel  sure  that  he  had  been  a  brigand  in  his 
youth — had  landed  us  at  the  door  of  the  hotel  at  Athens, 
his  first  act  when  I  handed  him  the  supplemented  fare 
was  to  fling  the  money  on  the  ground  and,  folding  his 
arms,  deliver  an  oration  so  long-winded  and  so  voluble 
that  I  felt  convinced  that  the  race  of  rhapsodists  to 
whom  the  author  of  the  "  Iliad  "  is  said  to  have  owed 
so  much  was  not  extinct.  The  hotel  people,  however, 
made  the  graceless  Automedon  pick  up  his  money  and 
bundled  him  off. 

Haunted  by  a  wholesome  fear  of  inflicting  guide- 
book talk  on  my  readers,  I  shall  say  very  little  indeed 
either  about  ancient  or  modern  Athens.  The  new 
town,  built  in  the  reign  of  the  Bavarian  King  Otho — 
Ho  skoiiphos,  the  Night-cap,  his  subjects,  for  what  reason 
I  know  not,  used  to  call  him — is  neat  and  clean ;  and 
might,  but  for  a  queer  little  old  Byzantine  cathedral  in 
the  middle  of  the  city,  be  the  capital  of  some  small 
German  principality.     As  for  the  Acropolis,  it  looked 


292  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

to  me,  at  first  sight,  small,  and  the  ruins  the  reverse  of 
imposing.  I  had  been  told  by  Constantine  Fenerli  to 
expect  the  most  wondrous  sights  in  Athens ;  but  that 
which  most  struck  me  during  my  first  ascent  of  the 
Acropolis  was  the  sight  of  a  Greek,  in  a  white  fusta- 
nella  much  in  need  of  washing,  shaving  a  large  French 
poodle,  which  for  the  purpose  was  perched  on  a  block 
of  Pentelican  marble,  while  another  Helline  played  the 
guitar  to  him  to  keep  him  quiet.  On  the  whole  I  felt 
a  sneaking  sympathy  with  the  American  tourist  who, 
when  he  first  beheld  the  remnants  of  the  Parthenon,  re- 
marked, "  They  may  well  call  this  place  a  Necropolis ; 
for  I  never  saw  so  many  tombstones  in  my  life."  I  dare 
say  that  these  honest  first  impressions  of  mine  have 
been  experienced  by  unnumbered  travellers  from  the 
West  who  have  lacked  courage  to  confess  the  disap- 
pointment which  came  over  them  on  their  arrival  at 
Athens — Milton's  ''Eye  of  Greece."  But,  I  am  glad 
to  say,  in  my  own  case  slight  disillusion  was  soon  fol- 
lowed by  intense  admiration  and  affection  for  the  unique 
city.  "  You  must  learn  to  love  me,"  Mr.  O'Smith  used 
to  say,  as  the  Bottle  Imp  in  the  old  Adelphi  melodrama. 
You  learn  to  love  Athens:  it  takes  some  travellers  a 
week  and  some  a  month  to  appreciate  the  place,  but 
sooner  or  later  the  appreciation  will  surely  come,  and 
grow  more  enthusiastic  every  day. 

We  had  a  most  intelligent  Greek  as  a  guide  on 
several  successive  days.  He  took  care  at  the  outset  to 
warn  us  that  we  should  say  "  tragoiidia  "  instead  of 
"  tragedy,"  and  that  Aristotle  should  be  pronounced 
Aristoteles,  with  the  accent  on  the  fourth  syllable ; 
but  he  was  also  full  of  anecdote  and  lucid  information. 
With  one  morsel  of  Greek  folklore  with  which  he 
favoured  us  I  was  much  entertained.  He  told  us  that 
when  the  Elgin  marbles  were  removed  from  Athens 
to  be  shipped  for  England,  the  removal,  in  order  to 


THE  TURKISH   CONSTITUTION  293 

avoid  the  popular  commotion  which  was  expected, 
took  place  at  night;  but  that,  as  the  labouring 
wains  were  rumbling  through  the  streets  on  their  way 
to  the  Piraeus,  the  statues  which  Phidias  had  graven 
were  heard  to  moan  and  shriek  for  grief  at  their  expa- 
triation. He  also  related  to  us,  as  a  modern  Greek  Joe 
Millerism,  the  story  of  a  lawsuit  in  which  a  deaf  plain- 
tiff sued  a  deafer  defendant  before  the  deafest  judge  in 
all  Hellas.  The  plaintiff  claimed  so  many  hundred 
drachmas  for  rent  that  was  due.  The  defendant 
pleaded  that  he  never  ground  his  corn  at  night ;  where- 
upon the  judge,  in  giving  judgment,  observed,  "  IVc//; 
shes  your  motJicr,  after  all ;  you  must  keep  her  betiveen 
your  When  I  got  home  I  found  this  apparently  up-to- 
date  triad  of  ludicrous  non  sequiturs  in  a  collection  of 
ancient  Greek  epigrams.  Is  there  any  new  joke  under 
the  sun  ?  I  doubt  there  being  one,  very  gravely. 
There  used  to  be  told  a  story  of  Sheridan  Knowles, 
the  dramatist,  who  was  a  first-rate  hand  at  Irish  bulls, 
meeting  one  of  twin  brothers,  and  asking  him,  "  Which 
of  ye  is  the  other?  "  Compare  the  story  of  that  very 
ancient  jester  Hierocles — "  Of  twins,  one  died  ;  Sko- 
lastikos,  meeting  the  survivor,  asked  him,  '  Was  it  you 
who  died  or  your  brother  ?  '  " 

There  was  a  squadron  of  British  ironclads  at  the 
Piraeus  during  my  stay  at  Athens  ;  and  my  visit  to  the 
city  of  Theseus  terminated  very  agreeably  with  a  din- 
ner on  board  the  Admiral's  flagship.  Campbell  Clarke 
took  his  departure  for  Corfu,  en  route  to  Paris  ;  but  I, 
having  a  few  weeks*  leave  of  absence,  enjoyed  a  brief 
spell  of  idleness  at  the  Greek  island  of  Syra,  a  most 
interesting  and  exceedingly  dirty  place.  Then  I  went 
to  Nice,  where  I  abode  for  full  two  months,  making,  I 
need  scarcely  say,  occasional  visits  to  Monte  Carlo, 
with  the  usual  results.  I  was,  however,  more  than 
usually  unlucky  in   the  spring   of   1877.     The  idiotic 


294  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 


idea  occurred  to  me  of  purchasing-  a  miniature  roulette 
wheel  with  a  cover  to  it,  and  carefully  noting  down 
the  result  of  each  "  spin,"  comprising  the  number, 
the  colour,  the  pair  and  impair,  the  '^ passe "  or  the 
"  manque."  Then  I  went  to  Monte  Carlo  and  pla)^ed 
precisely  the  contrary  game  at  roulette  to  that  which 
I  had  played  at  home  with  my  private  wheel.  The 
provoking  result  was  that  the  private  little  game  al- 
most exactly  repeated  itself  in  the  gilded  saloons  of 
"  Monty,"  and  I  was  nowhere.  At  home  I  only  staked 
my  haricot  beans  ;  "  at  Monty  "  I  played  louis. 

They  say  that  gambling  is  an  incurable  vice.  Do 
not  believe  anything  of  the  kind.  That  little  game  of 
haricots  versus  louis  practically  cured  me  of  the  pas- 
sion for  play.  I  have  been  to  Monte  Carlo  at  least  a 
dozen  times  during  the  last  fifteen  years  ;  and  although 
I  have  won  or  lost  a  few  pieces  at  trente-et-quarante  or 
at  roulette,  I  have  never  experienced  the  slightest 
yearning  to  play  high.  To  use  a  haughty  metaphor, 
I  no  longer  answer  to  the  whip  of  the  croupier.  On 
one  occasion,  on  my  way  to  Corsica,  the  steamer  put 
into  the  old  port  of  Nice ;  and  the  weather  being  very 
stormy,  she  remained  there  the  whole  day.  I  landed  ; 
took  a  walk  on  the  Quai  Massena,  and  dined  at  the 
restaurant  of  the  Hotel  des  Anglais ;  but  no  thought 
of  taking  a  trip  to  the  once  irresistible  tripot  of  the 
Prince,  whose  coat-of-arms,  so  far  as  I  can  make  out, 
is  the  Nine  of  Diamonds,  came  into  my  head. 

I  note  two  rather  droll  incidents  as  having  occurred 
during  my  stay  at  Nice.  In  the  way  of  gambling  cap- 
ital I  was  perfectly  cleared  out  within  a  fortnight  of 
my  arrival ;  but  the  manager  of  the  hotel  considerately 
cashed  my  cheques  for  board  and  lodging.  He  asked 
one  day  whether  I  got  other  cheques  cashed  anywhere 
else.  I  told  him  that,  beyond  the  drafts  I  had  given 
him  for  his  bill,  I   had  not  drawn  a  sou  from  home. 


THE   TURKISH   CONSTITUTION  295 

"  That  is  strange,  very  strange,"  quoth  the  manager — 
he  was  a  most  friendly  soul — meditatively.  "  Why 
strange?"  I  asked.  "Well,"  he  continued  in  rather  a 
hesitating  manner,  "  you  know  that  we  Nice  hotel- 
keepers  have  to  keep  a  rather  sharp  look-out  as  regards 
our  much-respected  guests ;  and  I  need  scarcely  tell 
you  that  we  have  agents  in  the  salons  at  Monte  Carlo 
who  keep  us  an  fait  with  the  luck  or  ill-luck  of  the 
ladies  and  gentlemen — especially  the  ladies — who  hon- 
our us  with  their  patronage.  When  Monsieur  had 
been  here  about  a  fortnight  he  was  completely  decave  ; 
and  yet  he  is  continually  smoking  twenty-five-sou 
cigars.  He  frequently  lunches  and  dines  at  the  Hotel 
de  Paris,  Monte  Carlo ;  and  before  he  begins  to  play 
he  always  changes  a  crisp  note  of  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land for  ten  pounds."  I  laughed  and  told  him  that  I 
had  learnt  alchemy  in  my  youth,  and  that  I  sometimes 
practised  the  occult  art  of  the  adepts. 

If  the  manager  was  puzzled  touching  the  secret  of 
my  resources,  my  friend  Captain  Cashless  was  more 
than  puzzled  :  he  was  simply  amazed.  Most  of  us  have 
met  Captain  Cashless  during  our  travels — middle-aged, 
good-looking,  well-preserved  ;  a  linguist,  a  dancing, 
fencing,  boating,  racing,  pigeon-shooting  gentleman ; 
late  of  the  Heavies.  Spent  most  of  his  money  before 
he  came  of  age ;  lived  for  several  years  on  the  credit 
of  his  credit ;  is  a  widower,  and  spent  every  penny  of 
his  wife's  fortune.  Has  tried  unsuccessfully  to  get  a 
berth  as  governor  of  a  gaol,  chief  constable  of  a  county, 
manager  of  a  hotel,  or  secretary  of  a  co-operative 
store.  Desperately  and  continuously  vexed  for  lack 
of  pence ;  save  that  he  contrives,  somehow,  to  pay  up 
his  subscriptions  to  the  two  military  clubs  to  which  he 
belongs. 

Captain  Cashless  was  a  chance  acquaintance ;  but 
our  acquaintance  soon  ripened  into  friendship — a  trav- 


296  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

elling-  friendship.  That  ten-pound-note  business  was, 
I  feel  confident,  a  source  of  continual  bewilderment 
to  the  captain.  He  was  a  gentleman,  and  forebore 
from  asking  me  whence  I  obtained  my  funds ;  but  upon 
one  occasion  I  heard  him  mutter,  "  No ;  he  hadn't  any 
diamond  rings  when  he  came."  I  was  too  much 
amused  with  his  chronic  state  of  astonishment  to  en- 
lighten him  as  to  my  ways  and  means.  But  I  may 
as  well  let  my  readers  into  the  secret  at  once.  At  a 
pretty  little  villa  at  Mentone  there  resided  a  very  old 
business  friend  of  mine,  the  late  Mr.  John  Dicks,  pro- 
prietor of  Reynolds  s  Nezvspapcr,  of  Bow  Bells,  and  of 
many  other  popular  publications,  for  which  I  have 
written  in  my  time  a  large  number  of  short  stories. 
Mr.  Dicks's  appetite  for  novelettes  was  insatiable  ;  and 
whenever  I  wanted  cash  I  had  only  to  scribble  for  a 
few  hours  ;  take  the  copy  over  to  Mentone  ;  and  re- 
ceive from  the  hands  of  my  friendly  publisher  a  crisp 
ten-pound  note  and  two  louis  and  a  half  in  gold.  Was 
not  this,  practically  speaking,  alchemy  ? 

I  note  in  my  diary  that  the  table  d'hote  at  the  hotel 
was  honoured  by  the  presence  of  a  lady,  who,  although 
of  a  matronly  aspect,  possessed  a  fair  residue  of  her 
former  surpassing  comeliness.  She  was  Madame  la 
Baronne  Unetelle,  and  had  been  one  of  the  beauties  of 
the  Court  of  the  Second  Empire ;  in  fact,  I  think  that 
her  portrait  figured  in  Winterhalter's  two  pictures — 
one  is  rather  "  risky  " — of  the  Empress  Eugenie  sur- 
rounded by  her  ladies  of  honour.  Madame  la  Baronne, 
who  was  nothing  if  not  voluble,  and  was  charmingly 
affable  to  boot,  was  never  tired  of  talking  of  the  ridi- 
culously awkward  and  clumsy  manner  in  which  the 
majority  of  English  people  pronounced  French — when 
they  could  speak  that  language  at  all.  Some  mali- 
cious imp  prompted  me  to  play  into  the  hands  of  the 
c^yL-dame  d'Jwnneur  of  the  Court  of  Napoleon  III.  ;  and 


THE   TURKISH   CONSTITUTION  297 

I  let  her  have  every  day  at  luncheon  and  dinner  an  un- 
stinted allowance  of  Anglo  -  French  of  the  Stratford- 
atte-Bowe  character.  You  know  the  sort  of  French  I 
mean.  "Aoza  j/cs;  eel  est  tray  boiv!'  '■'■  Commong  voo 
portay  voo  .^  "  "  Gar  gong,  donnay  moy  iing  morsozv  de 
pangr 

The  Baroness's  sides  used  to  shake  with  suppressed 
merriment  while  I  held  forth ;  and  one  evening,  as  she 
was  entering  the  salle  a  manger,  I  heard  her  say  to  two 
French  ladies  whom  she  had  invited  to  dinner,  "  You 
shall  enjoy  yourselves ;  you  shall  hear  the  Englishman 
talk  French  ;  it  will  be  ravissantJ"     As  luck  would  have 
it,  two  old  friends  of  mine,  a  French  general  and  his 
wife,  whom   I  had  known  in  Spain,  came  on  to  Nice  ; 
:  and  I  had  to  speak  French  not  at  all  of  the  Stratford- 
atte-Bowe  order.     I  shall  never  forget  the  expression 
of  astonishment  mingled  with  indignation  which  came 
over  the  well-cut  features  of  Madame  la  Baronne  Une- 
telle,  when  she  heard  us  conversing.     I  met  her  the 
next  day  in  the  reading-room ;  when,  casting  upon  me 
such  a  glance  as  Cleopatra  might  have  bestowed   on 
the  messenger  from   Augustus,   she  said,   "■Monsieur! 
voiis  etes  un  traitre  !  "  swept  out  of  the  apartment,  and 
never  spoke  to  me  again.     But  was  I  so  very  much  to 
blame  ?     At  least,  I   had  amused  Madame  la  Baronne 
Unetelle  twice  a  day  for  at  least  a  week  ;  and  in   this 
very  dull  and  monotonous   world  of  ours  some  slight 
guerdon  of  gratitude  is  due  to  those  who  amuse  us.     1 
have  nothing  more  to  say  about  the  year  1877,  save  to 
mention  that  it  was   one    of   unremitting  journalistic 
work.     I  had  long  since  ceased  to  write  books  ;  in  fact, 
I  think  that  full  ten  years  had  passed  since  any  new 
book  with  my  name  upon  it  had  been  published  ;  and 
I,  to  say  nothing  of  the  public,  had  practically  forgot- 
ten that  1  had  ever  been  an  author  at  all.     Toiling  for 
a   daily  newspaper   is   scarcely   compatible   with    tlie 


298        LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

composition  books.  At  the  end  of  your  day's  work 
you  feel — at  least,  that  is  the  case  with  myself — an  un- 
conquerable loathing  for  the  production  of  any  more 
"  copy  ; "  and  you  turn,  as  a  pleasant  recreation,  to 
nocturnal  study  :  a  practice  not  immediately  remun- 
erative, but  which  I  take  to  be  of  inestimable  service 
to  the  elderly  man  of  letters.  At  all  events,  it  keeps 
his  memory  green ;  and  he  must  learn  something  new 
every  night.  Never  mind  what  it  is  that  you  study  : 
dead  or  living  languages  ;  art  or  archasology  ;  science 
— if  you  have  a  predilection  that  way,  which  I  have 
not — theology,  Blair's  "  Preceptor,"  Colenso's  "  Arith- 
metic," Miss  Acton's  "  Cookery,"  or  Patterson's  "  Book 
of  Roads ;  "  you  will  get  something  out  of  any  one  of 
these  books  which  you  did  not  know  before,  or  know-, 
ing,  had  seemingly  forgotten. 


CHAPTER   LVI 

IN   MECKLENBURGH   SQUARE 

In  1878  I  had  acquired  the  lease  of  a  good  old-fash- 
ioned Cubitt-built  house  in  Mecklenburgh  Square  : 
my  next-door  neighbour  to  the  left  being  poor  dear 
Lewis  Wingfield.  Although  in  the  heart  of  London 
and  within  pistol-shot  of  that  not  very  savoury  thor- 
oughfare, the  Gray's  Inn  Road,  I  lived  in  Mecklen- 
burgh Square  with  eye-refreshing  greenery  on  three 
sides  of  my  house.  Before  me  was  the  good  old 
square  itself,  with  its  velvet  sward  and  its  tall  trees  ; 
just  beyond  Wingfield 's  house  stretched  the  back-gar- 
den of  the  Foundling  Hospital,  the  children  of  which 
noble  charity  soon  became  great  allies  of  ours  ;  while 
in  the  rear  was  my  own  garden  and  beyond  that  a 
green  burying-ground  long  since  disused.  I  lived  in 
Mecklenburgh  Square  in  happiness  and  prosperity  for 
some  years  ;  but  I  shall  only  trouble  my  readers  with 
one  little  story  touching  No.  46.  We  used  to  go  every 
autumn  to  Brighton :  taking  a  furnished  house  for  a 
few  weeks  prior  to  our  eventual  exodus  to  Rome  after 
Christmas.  We  took  our  servants  with  us :  leaving 
our  house  in  charge  of  a  care-taker.  One  year  we  en- 
gaged an  elderly  female,  very  highly  recommended 
for  integrity,  sobriety,  and  cleanliness.  I  used  to 
come  up  to  town  every  Monday  morning  for  a  few 
hours :  and  for  about  a  month  all  went  well  in  the 
square;  the  elderly  care-taker  seemed  to  be  exem- 
plarily  pious,  and  was  always  reading  good  little 
books  of  her  own  bringing.     I  think  she  once  inciden- 


300  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


tally  mentioned  that  she  had  seen  better  days,  and 
that  her  deceased  husband  had  been  a  sexton. 

One  Monday  morning — it  was  a  sunny,  early  au- 
tumn one — I  made  my  appearance  in  the  square  about 
half-past  eleven  a.m.  But,  to  my  perplexity  and  con- 
sternation, I  knocked  and  rang  repeatedly  and  vio- 
lently at  the  door  of  No.  46  without  obtaining  any  re- 
sponse to  my  summons.  Lewis  Wingfield  was  out  of 
town,  so  that  it  was  no  use  in  knocking  him  up  ;  but 
the  noise  I  made  had  attracted  the  attention  of  m}^ 
next-door  neighbours  to  the  east — two  kindly  ladies, 
mother  and  daughter.  They  sent  out  word  to  say  that 
their  housemaid  had  seen  the  elderly  care-taker  emerge 
from  No.  46  at  about  half-past  ten  a.m.  ;  and  that  she 
had  remarked  that  she  was  going  to  Guildford  Street 
to  buy  a  little  meat  for  the  cat.  It  was  useless  to 
knock  or  ring  any  longer,  and  at  last  my  good-natured 
neighbours  suggested  that  I  should  pass  through  their 
house  and  clamber  over  the  wall  of  their  garden  into 
mine  own.  My  climbing  days  had  long  been  over  ; 
but  with  the  assistance  of  the  housemaid,  a  pair  of 
steps,  and  a  broom-handle,  I  managed  to  get  over  the 
wall,  somehow. 

The  door  leading  into  the  back  part  of  the  house 
was  open  ;  but  so  soon  as  I  had  entered  the  passage 
I  was  encountered  by  a  most  fearful,  searching,  mo- 
notonous stench — the  never-to-be-forgotten  stench  of  a 
field  of  battle  when  the  fray  is  over.  Goodness  gra- 
cious !  what  had  happened  ?  Evidently  the  elderly 
care-taker  had  not  died  suddenly  some  two  or  three 
days  previously,  and  it  was  not  the  odour  of  her  de- 
composed remains  that  I  was  scenting ;  since  the 
housemaid  next  door  had  seen  her  an  hour  before  and 
heard  her  say  she  was  going  out  for  some  meat  for  the 
cat.  A  horrible  suspicion  passed  through  my  mind. 
Had  she  invited  another  elderly  female  to  tea  with 


IN  MECKLENBURGH   SQUARE  3OI 

her  ;  and  had  the  two  ladies,  like  Sairey  Gamp  and 
Betsy  Prig,  quarrelled  over  their  cups,  with  the  possi- 
ble and  tragical  result  that  the  sexton's  widow  had 
brained  her  friend  with  the  kitchen-chopper,  and  that 
it  was  the  corpse  of  the  murdered  female  which  was 
evolvins:  the  dreadful  smell  ?  I  searched  the  coal- 
hole  ;  I  explored  the  dust-bin  ;  I  rummaged  the  upper 
and  the  lower  chambers  ;  but  no  dead  body  did  I  find  : 
the  stench  meanwhile  growing  louder  and  louder.  I 
had  some  writing  to  do  ;  but  I  could  not  possibly  ac- 
complish it  in  the  midst  of  that  charnel-house  perfume. 
My  good-natured  neighbours  permitted  me  to  use 
their  back  drawing-room,  where  I  wrote  without  inter- 
mission until  nearly  three  in  the  afternoon.  I  was 
just  sealing  my  packet  of  manuscript  when  the  house- 
maid entered  the  room,  and  said,  "  She's  a-coming, 
sir."  "  Who's  coming  ?  "  I  asked.  "  The  care-taker," 
she  replied  ;  and  as  she  spoke  the  broadest  of  grins, 
culminating  in  a  giggle,  was  developed  on  her  feat- 
ures. 

She  opened  the  street-door  for  me  ;  and,  to  my  hor- 
ror, I  beheld,  in  the  red,  golden  afternoon,  the  elderly 
care-taker  just  turning  the  north-east  corner  of  Meck- 
lenburgh  Square  and  staggering  towards  No.  46.  As 
she  neared  the  house  we  noticed  that  she  held  the 
latch-key  in  one  hand  and  a  black  bottle  in  the  other. 
When  she  reached  my  door-step  a  sudden  lurch  caused 
her  to  drop  the  bottle,  which  fell  on  the  pavement  and 
was  broken  into  many  pieces.  The  liquid  which 
flowed  from  it  was  certainly  not  water  ;  for  it  was  a 
dark  red — rum,  possibly.  She  contrived  to  let  herself 
in  and  close  the  door.  I  slipped  back  into  No.  45  and 
got  over  the  garden-wall  again  ;  but  as  I  had  taken 
the  precaution  to  place  another  pair  of  steps  on  my 
own  side  the  feat  was  accomplished  without  much 
difficulty.     I  had  thrown  up  every  window,  back  and 


302  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

front,  in  the  house  ;  so  that  the  stench,  although  still 
terrible,  had  lost  something  of  its  sickening  strength. 
As  for  the  elderly  care-taker,  the  effort  of  turning  the 
key  in  the  door  had  been  too  much  for  her ;  she  had 
succumbed  to  excess  of  alcohol  and  was  lying  pros- 
trate and  speechless  in  the  passage.  Poor  woman  ! 
I  sent  at  once  for  a  doctor,  and  suggested  when  he 
arrived  that  the  unfortunate  creature,  who  seemed  to 
be  at  the  point  of  death,  should  be  at  once  conveyed 
to  the  Royal  Free  Hospital.  "  Nonsense  !  "  replied 
the  medical  man ;  "  she's  only  dead-drunk.  Do  you 
know  where  she  lives?"  I  replied  that  I  did,  and 
that  she  had  lodgings  in  the  not  far  distant  district  of 
Pentonville.  "  Very  well,"  went  on  the  doctor  ;  "  then 
the  best  thing  you  can  do  is  to  put  her  in  a  four- 
wheeled  cab  and  pack  her  off  home ;  care-takers  have 
a  weakness  that  way."  The  elderly  female  was  re- 
moved with  the  aid  of  the  housemaid  from  45  and  a 
sympathetic  cabman,  who  observed  that  the  "  old  lady 
had  had  her  load  and  no  mistake." 

But  that  dreadful,  that  searching,  that  noisome 
stench  remained :  somebody  was  lying  dead  in  that 
house  for  certain.  All  at  once  the  housemaid  from 
45  exclaimed  that  she  saw  something  white  under  the 
form  in  the  hall.  She  knelt  and  tried  to  drag  the  ob- 
ject out ;  but  fell  back  almost  swooning  from  that  pes- 
tiferous smell.  Then  I  helped  her,  and  I  succeeded 
in  lugging  out  a  wooden  box,  which  I  at  first  thought 
to  be  a  child's  coffin  ;  but  at  the  other  extremity  the 
box  turned  a  corner  and  was  continued  for  a  short 
length  at  an  oblique  angle ;  and  children's  coffins  are 
not  obliquely  angular.  A  journeyman  carpenter  was 
sent  for ;  he  opened  the  box  and  made  visible  that 
which  had  been  a  splendid  haunch  of  venison,  but  was 
now  one  festeringr  mass  of  maggots.  The  lid  of  the 
box  bore  a  parchment  label  with  my  address ;  the  date 


IN   MECKLENBURGH   SQUARE  303 


of  its  expedition  a  fortnight  since;  and  the  compli- 
ments of  Colonel  Farquharson  of  Invercauld.  It  was 
that  gallant  Highland  chieftain  familiarly  known  as 
"  Jim,"  but  now,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  deceased,  who  had 
sent  me  some  venison  of  his  own  stalking,  I  had  to 
pay  the  journeyman  carpenter  five  shillings  to  bury, 
at  dead  of  night,  that  awful  carrion. 

Voltaire  has  somewhere  said  that  men  of  letters  who 
go  into  society  superior  to  their  station  are  like  flying- 
fish.  They  flap  and  flutter  for  a  time  between  air  and 
water;  and  then  they  fall  on  the  deck  of  the  ship  and 
the  sailors  knock  them  on  the  head  for  venturing  to 
move  out  of  their  proper  habitation.  I  have  been 
knocked  over  the  head  by  the  flat  of  a  sabre  of  a 
French  dragoon ;  but  I  am  alive  to  tell  the  tale,  and, 
figuratively,  my  sconce  is  still  intact.  I  am  reminded, 
nevertheless,  of  Voltaire's  remark  by  the  circumstance 
that  when  I  was  living  in  Mecklenburgh  Square  I  be- 
gan to  mingle  again  in  that  society  in  which,  through 
the  position  of  my  dear  mother,  I  had  mingled  in  my 
boyhood.  I  had  never  lost  the  friendship  of  the  Bar- 
oness Burdett-Coutts  and  of  the  Viscountess  Comber- 
mere  ;  and  I  shall  always  remember  the  happy  days  I 
have  spent  at  the  Baroness's  house  in  Stratton  Street, 
and  at  Holly  Lodge,  Highgate,  and  at  Lady  Comber- 
mere's  residence  in  Belgrave  Square.  But  late  in  the 
'seventies  came  other  distinguished  friends,  among 
whom  I  hasten  to  mention  the  Earl  (now  Duke)  of  Fife 
and  the  Earl  of  Rosebery  and  his  late  deeply  regretted 
Countess,  a  lady  of  varied  attainments,  and  one  of  the 
sweetest  and  noblest-minded  of  women. 

At  Lord  Rosebcry's  house,  then  in  Piccadilly  and 
afterwards  at  Belgrave  Square  ;  and  his  country  scat 
at  Mentmore,  Leighton  Buzzard  ;  and  at  The  Durdans, 
near  Epsom,  I  met  the  best  of  all  good  company  in  the 
way   of   rank   and   talent — among  others,  the   Roths- 


304  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

childs,  Sir  William  Vernon  Harcourt,  Sir  Charles 
Dilke,  and,  last  but  not  least,  Mr.  Gladstone.  The 
Earl  of  Beaconsfield  I  never  had  the  honour  to  be 
presented  to  ;  but  he  was  so  kind  as  to  introduce  him- 
self to  me  on  the  occasion  of  a  number  of  journalists 
going  up  to  Downing  Street  as  a  deputation  on  some 
question  affecting  the  laws  of  copyright,  JNIr.  Disraeli 
was  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  when  the 
business  part  of  the  proceedings  was  over,  he  crossed 
the  room ;  said  that  he  ought  to  know  me,  and  shook 
hands  cordially.  A  minute  or  two  afterwards  he  as 
affably  requested  me  to  introduce  him  to  Miss  Brad- 
don,  who  was  present.  It  was  not  precisely  a  case  of 
Bertrand  et  Raton  ;  still  I  confess  that  the  fable  touch- 
ing some  chestnuts  and  a  certain  fire  did  occur  to  me 
when  I  introduced  Mr.  Disraeli  to  the  authoress  of 
"Aurora  Floyd."  Lord  Houghton  I  had  known  for 
years ;  and  of  Robert  Browning  and  Abraham  Hay- 
ward  I  had  made  the  acquaintance  at  Lady  Comber- 
mere's.  Finally,  at  the  well-remembered  marriage  of 
Mr.  Leopold  de  Rothschild  with  Miss  Perugia,  at  the 
Synagogue  in  Great  Portland  Street,  Lord  Rosebery 
was  so  kind  as  to  present  me  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  : 
telling  His  Royal  Highness  that  I  had  written  an  ac- 
count of  his  wedding  with  the  Princess  Alexandra,  in 
St.  George's  Chapel,  Windsor.  A  few  days  afterwards 
I  received  a  letter  from  the  distinguished  surgeon  the 
late  Sir  Oscar  Clayton,  reminding  me  of  old  Princess's 
green-room  days,  and  asking  me  to  dine  in  Harley 
Street  to  have  the  honour  of  meeting  the  Prince.  I 
have  subsequently  often  enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  the 
Heir  to  the  Crown  at  Marlborough  House  and  at  the 
Garrick  Club.  Of  the  gracious  notice  taken  of  me  by 
other  members  of  the  Royal  Famil}^  it  is  not  necessary 
that  I  should  say  one  word  ;  and  in  this,  I  hope  not 
too  lengthy,  paragraph,  I  have  honestly  and,  I  think, 


IN   MECKLENBURGH   SQUARE  305 


modestly  liberated  my  soul  with  respect  to  the  illus- 
trious and  noble  personages  whom  I  have  met,  and 
who  have  been  invariably  good  and  courteous  to  me. 
I  have  never  flattered  nor  toadied  the  great :  I  never 
asked  anything  from  them,  and  I  don't  want  anything ; 
but  I  am  justifiably  proud,  as  a  working  journalist  of 
no  celebrity  but  of  some  notoriety,  to  have  come  in 
amicable  contact  with  the  flower  of  English  society. 

To  Mecklenburgh  Square  da3's  likewise  belongs  my 
earliest  remembrance  of  the  Grosvenor  Galler}-  in 
New  Bond  Street,  which  was  built  by  Sir  Coutts 
Lindsay,  who  adorned  the  fagade  with  a  portico 
brought  from  a  palace  at  Venice,  and  who  opened  the 
gallery  as  an  annual  exhibition  of  high-class  pictures 
selected  by  himself,  with  the  assistance  of  his  direc- 
tors, Mr.  Comyns  Carr  and  Mr.  C.  Halle.  Mentioning 
only  the  circumstance  that  Sir  Coutts  showed  me 
much  attention,  and  that  I  preserve  to  this  day  the 
esteemed  friendship  of  Lady  Lindsay,  I  will  adhere  to 
the  law  which  I  have  laid  down  to  myself  not  to  say 
anything  more  touching  the  grand  folks  whom  I  have 
met  in  England  ;  although  I  could  sa}-  a  good  deal  of 
perhaps  an  interesting  nature  touching  the  "  Gros- 
venor Sundays  " — splendid  convocations  as  they  were 
of  all  that  was  worth  seeing  and  talking  to  in  London. 
Without  indiscretion,  however,  I  may  mention  that 
these  "  superlative  afternoon  teas "  brought  me  in 
friendly  fellowship  with  such  painters  of  renown  as 
Alma-Tadema,  Edward  Burne-Jones,  W.  B.  Rich- 
mond, Holman  Hunt,  G.  F.  Watts,  and  T.  Woolner. 
There  are  no  Grosvenor  Sundays  now.     Foyers  dtcmts. 

The  year  1878  was  marked  by  another  Paris  Inter- 
national Exhibition.  My  proprietors  wanted  me  in 
London,  and  were  loath  to  send  me  abroad  ;  but  in  the 
middle  of  the  summer  they  thought  that  I  might  as 
well  go  over  to  Paris  and  write  some  letters,  less 
II.— 20 


306  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

about  the  Exhibition  itself — it  did  not  materially  differ 
from  preceding  displays  of  the  kind,  save  that  it  was 
bigger  and  was  the  primary  cause  of  greater  rapacity 
on  the  part  of  the  Parisian  hotel  and  restaurant  keep- 
ers— than  that  I  should  say  something  descriptive 
about  what  was  going  on  in  the  Gay  City  generally. 
I  was  to  stay  a  fortnight ;  but  at  the  expiration  of  that 
time  Mr.  J.  M.  Levy  suggested  that,  as  my  letters  had 
been  received  with  some  approval  by  the  British  pub- 
lic, I  might  as  well  remain  another  week  or  so.  The 
end  of  it  was  that  I  did  not  return  to  Mecklenburgh 
Square  until  the  eve  of  my  birthday,  the  24th  Novem- 
ber ;  and  I  was  able  to  collect  and  republish  in  book 
form  a  portion  of  my  letters,  to  which  I  gave  the  title 
of  "  Paris  Herself  Again."  The  book  passed  through 
seven  or  eight  editions  and  I  made  a  great  deal  of 
money  by  it.  Thus,  although  I  had  thought  that  my 
days  of  book-making  were  over,  my  case  was  that  of 
an  author  iiialgre  liii ;  and,  as  things  stand  at  present,  I 
do  not  care  to  enter  into  any  mental  recognisances 
that  I  will  not  write  any  more  books. 

The  year  1879  dwells  in  my  memory  through  two,  to 
me,  most  interesting  experiences.  Archibald  Forbes, 
the  valiant  and  brilliant  War  Correspondent,  had  come 
home  from  South  Africa ;  a  little  broken  in  health  but 
covered  with  literary  laurels.  It  was  resolved  by  a 
committee  of  his  many  friends,  among  whom  the  guid- 
ing spirits  were  Edmund  Yates  and  J.  C.  Parkinson, 
that  a  congratulatory  dinner  should  be  given  to  Archi- 
bald ;  and  I  was  asked  to  take  the  chair  on  the  occa- 
sion. It  was  in  all  respects  a  splendid  and  memorable 
banquet,  the  guests  being  exclusively  composed  of 
military  men  and  personal  friends  of  Forbes.  He  sat, 
of  course,  on  my  right  hand ;  and  to  my  left  Avas  the 
late  Duke  of  Sutherland,  who  had  put  on  his  star  and 
riband  of  the  Garter  to  do  honour  to  the  brave  corre- 


IN   MECKLENBURGH   SQUARE  307 

spondent  of  the  Daily  Neivs.  Next  to  the  Duke  was 
Lord  Houghton.  The  speeches,  after  the  ordinary 
toasts  had  been  disposed  of,  were  admirable  ;  but  those 
who  expected  a  set  oration  from  Archibald  Forbes 
were  drolly  disappointed.  When  the  tumult  of  ap- 
plause which  followed  the  proposal  of  his  health  had 
subsided,  Archibald  rose  and  quietly  said,  "  I  am  no 
orator,  as  this  old  Brutus  is,  so  I  must  content  myself 
with  thanking  you  for  the  great  honour  you  have  done 
me."  Then  he  sat  down.  Wh}^  he  should  have  alluded 
to  me,  being  the  chairman,  as  "  Brutus,"  I  have  not  the 
remotest  conception  ;  but  I  believe  that  the  man's  heart 
was  simply  full  to  overflowing ;  and  that  was  why  he 
did  not  say  more. 


CHAPTER    LVIII 

FROM   THE   ATLANTIC   TO   THE   PACIFIC 

In  December,  1879,  ^^Y  "^^i^^  ^^^  I  paid  our  second 
visit  to  the  United  States.  I  was  pretty  well  fagged- 
out  with  continuous  hard  work ;  and  my  friends  in 
Fleet  Street  thought  that  a  few  weeks'  change  would 
do  me  good.  Why  I  selected  the  bleak,  wintry 
month  for  the  journey  I  shall  tell  my  readers  ere 
long.  The  authorities  in  Fleet  Street  only  contem- 
plated my  making  a  trip  to  New  York,  Boston,  Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore,  Washington,  Cincinnati,  and  Chi- 
cago ;  but  I  had  ulterior  views  of  a  voyage  of  a  far 
more  ambitious  nature.  We  crossed  the  Atlantic  in 
a  Cunard  in  a  succession  of  storms  —  I  never  did 
cross  that  ocean  save  in  winter  and  in  tempestuous 
weather — and  found  plenty  of  old  friends  in  Manhat- 
tan to  welcome  us.  I  had  a  brief  attack  of  illness 
at  Christmas  ;  but  was  soon  convalescent,  and  after 
passing  a  week  at  Boston,  we  went  to  Philadelphia, 
where  we  Avere  the  guests  of  that  most  munificent 
and  hospitable  of  hosts,  the  late  Mr.  G.  W.  Childs, 
the  proprietor  of  the  Piiblic  Ledger.  At  Washington 
we  were  received  with  much  kindness  by  the  British 
Minister-Plenipotentiary,  Sir  Edward  Thornton ;  and 
soon  afterwards  my  ulterior  views  as  to  travelling 
began  to  be  developed.  We  determined  to  go  down 
South ;  and  made  the  best  of  our  way  by  rail  to 
Richmond,  in  Virginia.  I  took  but  one  letter  of  in- 
troduction with  me :  it  was  to  the  Governor  of  the 
State.     His  Excellency  at    once  asked    us  to  dinner, 


FROM   THE   ATLANTIC   TO   THE   PACIFIC  309 

and  invited  a  large  party  to  meet  us ;  and  the  next 
day  we  were  free  of  the  best  society  in  the  whilom 
Confederate  capital — a  society  equally  hospitable  and 
refined.  I  believe  the  Southerners  had  some  inkling 
of  the  fact  that  twenty  years  before  I  had  stood 
their  friend  in  their  gigantic  struggle  with  the  North ; 
but  in  this  connection  let  me  say  that  in  New  York 
I  was  not  subjected  to  any  kind  of  newspaper  hos- 
tility owing  to  m}^  bygone  Copperhead  tendencies. 
These  tendencies  were,  indeed,  humorously  alluded 
to  by  an  Irish  journalist  at  a  reception  offered  me 
by  the  New  York  Press  Club.  ''And,"  said  the 
speaker,  "  if  Mr.  Sala  (pronounced  "  Sailer")  did  sym- 
pathise with  the  Confeds,  it  was  only  the  S3'mpathy 
which  one  ought  to  feel  for  the  under  dog." 

From  Richmond,  after  a  sojourn  of  some  three 
weeks  of  unmingled  pleasantness,  we  journeyed  to 
Augusta,  in  the  State  of  Georgia ;  to  Charleston,  in 
South  Carolina ;  and  ultimately  to  New  Orleans, 
where  I  found  the  Carnival  "  in  full  blast."  Again  I 
had  brought  but  one  letter  of  introduction  with  me. 
It  was  to  General  Randall  Gibson,  one  of  the  senators 
for  the  State  of  Louisiana ;  and  through  his  prompt 
kindness  every  door  of  note  in  the  Crescent  City  was 
thrown  open  to  us.  "  Rex,"  the  occult  king  of  the 
Carnival,  was  most  attentive  to  us :  sending  us  day 
after  day  cards  of  invitation  to  balls  and  gala  perform- 
ances at  the  Opera  and  other  theatres ;  and  one  day 
my  wife  received  a  magnificent  bouquet  of  flowers 
with  "  Rex's"  compliments.  The  Carnival  was  a  ver}^ 
splendid  one  ;  but  that  which  enchanted  me  most  in 
New  Orleans  was  the  perfectly  Parisian  society  which 
one  found  on  one  side  of  Canal  Street  and  the  as 
completely  American  community  that  existed  on  the 
other.  In  the  French  quarter  you  found  French 
milliners  aud  dressmakers,  coiifiscurs,  libraries   full  of 


310  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

French  novels  and  newspapers,  French  restaurants, 
cafe's,  and  giimgucttes,  and  in  the  old  French  market 
on  Sunday  mornings  we  used  to  have  an  irreproach- 
able French  dejeuner  a  la  fonrcJictte,  followed  by  the 
renowned  "  drip "  coffee,  which  is  so  strong  that 
it  is  said  to  stain  the  saucer  into  which  it  is  poured. 
All  over  the  city  you  find  excellent  French  restaur- 
ants, where  the  claret  is  better  and  cheaper  than  that 
which  you  drink  at  hotels  and  restaurants  in  France  ; 
while  at  a  place  of  entertainment  on  the  way  to  Lake 
Pontchartrain  they  not  only  give  you  bouillabaisse  as 
good  as  any  that  you  can  obtain  at  the  Reserve  by 
Marseilles ;  but  show  you  an  autograph-book,  in 
which  there  is  a  terse  eulogium  of  the  fish  stew  in 
question,  in  the  handwriting  of  Thackeray  and  signed 
by  him. 

I  have  one  sad  confession  to  make  with  regard  to 
New  Orleans.  I  went  to  a  cock-fight  ;  and  the  con- 
test, I  grieve  to  say,  took  place  on  a  Sunday.  Well,  I 
had  been  a  spectator,  years  before  of  gallomachia  at 
Algiers,  at  Seville,  and  at  Granada ;  and  the  combats 
were  always  held  on  the  Sabbath.  With  great  reluc- 
tance did  we  leave  New  Orleans.  It  was  mid-February, 
but  sunny  and  sultry  in  the  Crescent  City ;  but  we 
had  not  forgotten  that  we  were  going  back  into  win- 
ter ;  and  had  so  provided  ourselves  with  a  good  stock 
of  warm  clothing  ;  but  we  brought  away  with  us  a 
large  branch  of  an  orange-tree  with  six  ripe  oranges 
upon  it ;  and  carrying  that  golden  bough,  after  a 
weary  two  or  three  days'  journey,  did  we  enter  the 
city  of  Chicago  to  find  it  enveloped  in  a  mantle  of 
snow.  The  great  metropolis  of  pork  and  grain  was 
then,  as  it  is  now,  a  wonderful  city  ;  but  I  should  say 
that  the  majority  of  my  readers  have  heard  enough 
about  Chicago  in  connection  with  its  World's  Fair  to 
enable  me  to  dispense  with  any  prolusions  on  the  sub- 


FROM   THE   ATLANTIC   TO   THE   PACIFIC  3II 

ject.  1  may  just  remark  that  at  the  Chicago  Club  I 
met  Mr.  Robert  Lincoln,  the  son  of  the  murdered 
President,  and  who  was  subsequently  Minister-Pleni- 
potentiary to  England.  I  should  have  mentioned,  too, 
that  at  Washington  we  were  indebted  for  much  grace- 
ful hospitality  to  Senator  Bayard,  now  United  States 
Ambassador  at  the  Court  of  St.  James. 

eaving  Chicago,  we  paid  a  visit  to  Cincinnati, 
whi^a  seemed  to  me  to  oe  almost  as  much  a  German 
as  an  American  city  ;  and  there  we  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  prominent  Western  journalist,  Mr.  Murat 
Halstead.  I  had  still  ulterior  views ;  and  to  carr}'- 
them  out  it  was  necessary  that  we  should  return  to 
Chicago,  where  we  had  left  our  heavy  luggage  ;  in-> 
deed,  we  did  leave  much  of  our  belongings  at  the 
luggage- room  of  the  Grand  Pacific  Hotel  when  we 
started  on  a  journey  still  further  west.  Travelling  by 
the  Chicago  and  North-Western  Railway,  we  reached 
Council  Bluffs,  once  the  home  of  Mrs.  Amelia  Bloomer  : 
the  lady  who  invented  the  peculiar  feminine  costume 
of  which,  in  the  modified  form  of  knickerbockers,  the 
English  public  is  now  witnessing  a  revival.  Crossing 
the  bridge  over  the  river,  we  "  detrained,"  as  the 
French  say,  at  Omaha,  which,  in  1879,  was  an  insignifi- 
cant town,  with  a  few  thousand  inhabitants,  and  with 
only  one  habitable  hotel — The  Planters'  House.  We 
only  stayed  a  day  at  Omaha,  and  then  took  the  Cen- 
tral Pacific  Railroad  for  Ogden,  in  the  territory  of 
Utah.  We  had  a  drawing-room  car,  splendidly  fur- 
nished, and  with  two  comfortable  bed-rgoms  and  a 
kitchen ;  and  so  well  stocked  were  our  larder  and  cel- 
lar that  beyond  fresh  eggs  in  the  morning  we  had  no 
occasion  to  purchase  anything  at  the  refreshment- 
rooms  on  the  line.  Crossing  the  Rocky  Mountains 
was  rather  tedious  ;  as  the  speed  sometimes  does  not 
exceed  fifteen  miles  an  hour.     But  it  is  a  long  lane  that 


312  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

has  no  turning  ;  and  in  due  time  we  found  ourselves 
at  Ogden ;  and  then  availed  ourselves  of  a  branch  line 
to  Salt  Lake  City,  the  Mormon  capital.  I  have  de- 
scribed all  the  incidents  of  this  expedition  in  a  book 
called  "  America  Revisited."  Coming  back  to  Ogden, 
we  began  the  descent  of  the  Pacific  Slope  ;  found  our- 
selves one  morning  at  Sacramento  City  in  glorious 
spring  weather,  with  the  birds  singing  and  the  camel- 
lias growing  in  the  open  air,  and  a  few  hours  after- 
wards we  were  comfortably  installed  at  the  Palace 
Hotel,  San  Francisco. 

This  huge  caravansary  seemed  to  me  the  largest 
American  hotel  I  had  ever  seen  :  it  cost  I  know  not 
how  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  to  build  ; 
and  thoroughly  to  decorate  it  would  cost,  I  should 
say,  a  good  many  more  hundred  thousands.  The  pro- 
prietor of  the  amazing  pile  in  1879  ^^^s  Senator  Shar- 
on ;  and  when  we  asked  for  a  modest  sitting-room, 
bed-room,  and  bath-room,  there  was  placed  at  our  dis- 
posal a  suite  of  about  twelve  or  fourteen  spacious 
apartments.  Whether  these  rooms  were  on  the  tenth 
or  the  sixteenth  floor  of  the  hotel  it  does  not  in  the 
least  signify  ;  seeing  that  the  lifts  or  "  elevators  "  ap- 
peared to  my  dazed  sense  to  be  as  capacious  as  the  old 
ascending -room  at  the  Colosseum  in  the  Regent's 
Park.  I  knew,  as  I  thought,  absolutely  nobody  in  the 
modern  El  Dorado ;  but  before  we  had  been  a  week 
in  'Frisco  we  had  a  host  of  friends — millionaires,  ar- 
tists, journalists,  lawyers,  and  what  not.  The  whole 
place  seemed  to  me  the  realisation  of  some  brilliant 
but  somewhat  bizarre  vision.  The  hospitality  which 
we  experienced  knew  no  bounds  ;  but  the  millionaires 
who  feted  us,  and  whom  we  found  in  gilded  saloons 
hung  with  lustrous  fabrics,  and  sparkling  with  plate, 
crystal,  pictures,  and  statuary,  resided  for  the  most 
part  in  houses  built  entirely  of  wood — San  Francisco 


FROM   THE   ATLANTIC   TO   THE   PACIFIC  313 

being,  as  I  was  warned,  a  town  chronically  subject  to 
the  infliction  of  earthquakes.  When  I  asked  whether 
by  dwelling  in  palaces  of  timber  the  residents  on  "  Nob 
Hill " — the  popular  name  for  the  fashionable  quarter 
of  'Frisco — did  not  expose  themselves  to  the  perils  of 
fire,  I  was  informed  that  the  wood  of  which  the  edi- 
fices were  built  was  of  a  practically  uninflammable 
nature. 

The  streets  of  San  Francisco  were  to  me  a  source  of 
never-ending  delight.  There  I  saw  for  the  first  time 
the  electric  tram-cars,  the  capacity  of  which  was  pith- 
ily summed  up  by  a  Chinese  critic  as  "  No  Pushee  ;  no 
Pullee  ;  go  like  Hellee."  Of  the  Celestials  themselves, 
in  their  own  picturesque  and  indescribably  filthy  dis- 
trict known  as  Chinatown,  I  saw  a  great  deal  both  by 
night  and  by  day.  The  rejoicings  consequent  on  the 
Chinese  New  Year  were  in  progress.  We  dined  one 
evening  at  the  house  of  a  wealthy  merchant  from 
Canton  ;  and  the  next  evening  we  visited  a  Chinese 
restaurant.  Of  many  strange,  and  to  me,  incompre- 
hensible dishes  did  we  there  partake.  Still,  myste- 
rious as  was  the  incmi,  I  continue  to  nourish  the  fond 
hope  that  the  bill  of  fare  comprised  neither  puppy  nor 
kitten  ;  neither  stewed  rattlesnake  nor  skunk  au  g7'atin. 
We  went  to  two  large  Chinese  theatres ;  at  one  there 
was  an  afternoon  performance  and  the  house  was 
crammed;  at  another  at  the  evening  performance 
there  was  scarcely  standing  room,  and  my  olfactory 
memory  yet  retains  a  lively  impression  of  the  aroma 
of  that  pigtailed  audience.  At  one  theatre  the  com- 
pany were  playing  a  comedy  ;  I  am  not  aware  of  how 
many  acts  it  was  in,  as  it  had  been  going  on  for  six 
weeks  and  was  not  half  concluded.  At  the  other 
house  an  historical  tragedy  had  been  unwinding  the 
scaly  horrors  of  its  folded  tail  for  full  four  months. 
That  perhaps  need  excite  little  surprise.     The  Acts  of 


314  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


the  Bollandists  are  not  yet  within  measurable  distance 
of  completion;  and  what  letter  of  the  alphabet,  I  may 
ask,  has  as  yet  been  reached  by  the  compilers  of  the 
dictionary  of  the  French  Academy  ?  I  completed  my 
investigations  of  life  in  Chinatown  by  a  nocturnal 
visit,  under  the  auspices  of  a  captain  of  police,  to  the 
gambling-houses  and  opium-smoking  dens  of  the  yel- 
low people. 

I  spoke  rather  hastily  when  I  said  that  I  knew  no- 
body on  arriving  at  'Frisco.  I  was  destined  to  meet 
there  a  very  old,  old  friend.  I  had  often  heard  of  a 
weekly  periodical  called  Tlie  San  Francisco  Neivs  Letter, 
a  kind  of  transatlantic  TrutJi,  only  a  little  more  per- 
sonal, and  a  little  livelier — not  to  say  more  libellous — 
than  Mr.  Labouchere's  amiable  sheet.  I  was  aware 
that  the  Nczvs  Letter  had  been  owned  and  edited  for 
many  years  by  Mr.  Frederick  Marriott,  the  whilom 
proprietor  of  Chat ;  but  a  great  gulf  of  time  yawned 
between  1848  and  1879;  ^'^d  I  scarcely  even  surmised 
that  Mr.  Marriott,  who  was  middle-aged  when  he  left 
England,  was  still  living.  I  sought  information  re- 
specting him  from  Mr.  George  Smith,  the  polite  chief 
clerk  of  the  Palace  Hotel,  who  immediately  made 
answer,  "  Living,  indeed  !  I  guess  that  Fred  Marriott 
is  altogether  a  live  man  !  Go  and  see  him."  So  I 
went  to  the  office  of  the  Nczvs  Letter  ;  sent  in  my  card, 
and  a  moment  afterwards  was  grasped  by  the  hand  by 
my  ancient  friend,  grown  very  old  and  somewhat 
feeble,  but  still  alert  and  vivacious.  I  recognised  his 
features  and  his  voice  at  once ;  but  he  owned  that  he 
would  have  failed  to  do  so  had  he  met  me  in  the  street. 
He  intioduced  me  to  his  son — a  fine,  handsome  young 
fellow,  who  on  the  morrow,  after  the  pleasantest  of 
dinners  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Marriott  senior,  drove  me 
in  a  vehicle  to  which  I  would  not  have  the  hardihood 
to  give  a  definite  name,  but  which  was  drawn  by  a  fast 


FROM   THE   ATLANTIC   TO   THE   PACIFIC  315 

trotting  mare,  through  the  Golden  Gates  Park  to  the 
Gates  themselves,  which  the  Australians  would  call 
"  heads,"  and  which  form  the  entrance  to  the  harbour 
of  'Frisco.  There  is  a  capital  hotel  here  overlooking 
the  blue  Pacific  ;  and  close  to  the  balcony  of  the  room 
where  we  lunched  rose  from  the  waves  the  great  Seal 
Rock,  on  and  around  which  hundreds  of  seals  were 
disporting  themselves,  barking  and  splashing,  romping 
and  turning  somersaults,  as  it  is  the  manner  of 
those  jocund  mammals  to  do.  Charles  Kingsley's 
"  Poacher's  Widow "  saw  the  Merry  Brown  Hares 
come  Leaping ;  but  I  will  back  the  Golden  Gate  seals 
for  downright  whole-hearted  fun  against  any  inarticu- 
late creatures  that  I  have  come  across.  They  are,  one 
and  all,  the  most  festive  of  "  cusses." 

Another  English  friend  did  we  meet  at  the  Golden 
Gates  Hotel.  This  was  Edward  Sothern,  the  inimi- 
table Lord  Dundreary,  who  was  fulfilling  an  engage- 
ment at  one  of  the  San  Francisco  theatres  ;  but  who 
seemed  to  me  an  utterly  worn-out  and  broken-backed 
man.  He  was  so  exhausted  before  the  middle  of 
luncheon  that  he  had  to  lie  on  a  sofa  for  full  two  hours 
before  he  could  be  driven  back  to  San  Francisco.  We 
went  to  the  theatre  that  night  to  see  Our  American 
Cousin.  The  house  was  full,  and  I  think  that  the  occa- 
sion was  the  four-thousandth  one  of  Sothern's  enacting 
a  part  with  which  he  will  be  ever  as  closely  identified 
as  Joseph  Jefferson  will  be  with  that  of  Rip  Van 
Winkle.  Some  fifteen  months  afterwards,  at  the  Prin- 
cess's Theatre,  London,  I  saw  Sothern  in  a  private  box 
opposite  our  own,  and  went  round  between  the  acts  to 
greet  him  ;  he  looked  more  lamentably  ill  than  he  had 
done  in  1879,  ^"d  a  few  weeks  afterwards  he  was  dead. 
Poor  Lord  Dundreary  ! 


CHAPTER    LVIII 

A   MURDERED   TSAR 

I  CAME  home  in  the  spring  ;  and  I  do  not  find  that 
anything  of  sufficient  importance  to  merit  record  here 
occurred  during  the  year  1880.  It  was  different  in 
1 88 1.  One  Sunday,  in  the  second  week  in  March,  I 
was  present  at  a  dinner-party  given  by  the  Earl  of 
Fife,  who  then  lived  in  Cavendish  Square.  Prince 
Lobanoff,  the  Russian  Ambassador,  was  to  have  been 
one  of  the  guests  ;  but  His  Excellency  was  detained  at 
the  Embassy  by  affairs  of  a  gravely  serious  nature. 
Early  in  the  afternoon  Lord  Fife  received  a  telegram 
from  Chesham  House  stating  that  an  attempt  had  been 
made  on  the  life  of  the  Emperor  Alexander  II.  at  St. 
Petersburg ;  and  that  His  Majesty  was  grievously 
wounded.  The  first  course  of  the  dinner  had  not 
concluded  when  another  despatch  arrived  from  Bel- 
grave  Square  saying  that  the  Tsar  was  dead.  Natu- 
rally this  terrible  tragedy  formed  the  principal  subject 
of  conversation  throughout  the  evening ;  but  I  myself 
was  for  personal  reasons  uneasily  preoccupied  by  the 
shocking  catastrophe  at  St.  Petersburg.  I  reflected 
ruefully  that,  in  all  human  probability,  ere  many  hours 
were  over  I  should  be  on  my  way  towards  the  snow- 
clad  plains  of  Russia.  I  dreaded  lest  a  messenger  from 
the  office  should  be  waiting  for  me  on  my  return  home 
with  instructions  for  me  to  proceed  Due  North  by 
Monday  morning's  express  from  Charing  Cross.  I 
dreaded  that  messenger  as  much  as  the  naughty  boy 
dreads  the  advent  of  the  schoolmaster. 


A   MURDERED   TSAR  317 


I  thought  that  at  least  I  would  tire  the  juvenile 
Mercury  from  Fleet  Street  well  out.  It  was  nearly 
midnight  when  the  party  at  Lord  Fife's  broke  up  ; 
and  I  wandered  from  club  to  club  till  three  in  the 
morning.  No  messenger  had  been  in  quest  of  me,  so 
I  learned  when  I  returned  to  Mecklenburgh  Square  ; 
and  my  wife  did  not  even  know  of  the  horrible  crime 
which  had  been  perpetrated  at  St.  Petersburg.  Of 
course  the  morning's  papers  were  full  of  news  about 
the  latest  Nihilist  atrocity,  but  it  was  a  private  and 
not  a  public  communication  which  I  was  nervously 
awaiting.  The  communication  arrived,  sure  enough, 
just  before  lunch  ;  it  came  from  Mr.  Le  Sage,  the  man- 
aging editor  of  the  Daily  Telegraph,  and  was  to  this 
effect : — "  Please  write  a  leading  article  on  the  price 
of  fish  at  Billingsgate,  and  go  to  St.  Petersburg  in  the 
evening."  My  duty  was  before  me,  and  I  had  to  do 
it ;  and  my  wife  understood  quite  as  well  as  I  did  what 
course  of  action  to  adopt  under  the  circumstances.  I 
merely  said:  "Office;  passport;  money,"  lighted  a 
cigar,  and  went  to  work  on  the  fish  leader.  By  four 
o'clock  she  had  returned  with  my  Foreign  Office  pass- 
port, vised  by  the  Russian  Ambassador  ;  with  a  letter 
of  credit,  and  a  large  supply  of  rugs  and  fleecy  hosi- 
er}'.  I  had  no  fur  pelisse ;  but  I  thought  that  I  could 
easily  buy  one  so  soon  as  I  arrived  in  the  Russian  cap- 
ital ;  and  that  meanwhile  a  great  coat  of  stout  beaver, 
wadded  and  lined  with  quilted  silk,  would  keep  out 
the  cold  well  enough. 

So  I  hastened,  if  not  precisely  like  a  "  Tartar's  bow," 
as  directly  and  expeditiously  as  ever  a  Channel  steamer 
and  express  trains  would  carry  me,  through  Brussels 
and  Cologne,  and  Berlin  and  Konigsberg,  to  Petropolis. 
It  was  an  exceptionally  cold  winter ;  but  Russian  rail- 
way compartments  are  rather  over-  than  under-heated  ; 
and  I  suffered  little  from  the  cold  until  I  found  myself 


3l8  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

settled  down  in  a  large  hotel,  kept  by  an  intelligent 
Frenchman,  in  the  Nevskoi  Perspektive. 

I  cannot  exactly  settle  in  my  mind  whether  it  was 
this  hotel  or  another  one  in  the  Izaak's  Ploschad  where 
one  of  the  most  pleasing  features  of  the  table  d'hote  was 
the  appearance  there,  once  a  week,  of  several  mighty 
tureens  of  splendidly  made  Irish  stew.  Whence  the 
landlord  had  got  the  recipe  for  this  grand  dish  I  am 
uncertain  ;  but  its  ensemble  would,  I  am  convinced,  have 
excited  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  every  son  of  Old 
Erin.  The  proprietor  told  me  that  once  a  week  he  had 
a  live  sheep  sent  up  by  railway  from  Finland.  At 
once,  when  I  heard  this,  did  my  mind  revert  to  the  live 
turtles  which,  nearly  fifty  years  before,  I  used  to  see 
stolidly  crawling  about  the  floor  of  a  pastry-cook's 
shop  in  Old  Bond  Street,  w4th  a  little  flag  labelled 
"■  Soup  to-morrow  "  stuck  in  the  centre  of  their  cara- 
paces. That  doomed  mutton  from  the  Gulf  of  Finland 
ought  to  have  had  hung  round  his  neck  an  equivalent 
to  the  Greek  "  Thanatos'' — "  Irish  stew  on  Saturday." 
Officers  of  the  Imperial  Guard,  merchants  and  bankers 
and  tchinovniks,  used  to  flock  to  the  hotel  at  the  close 
of  every  week  to  partake  of  that  delicious  dish  ;  and  a 
murmur  of  approbation  would  arise  from  the  guests  at 
the  dinner-table  when  the  stew,  in  a  good-sized  bucket, 
was  carried  by  two  sturdy  blond-bearded  moujiks  into 
the  salle  a  manger,  to  be  afterwards  more  elegantly 
served  up  in  tureens.  The  great  charm  of  the  suc- 
culent preparation  was  that  it  thoroughly  warmed  you. 
As  Jane  Welch  Carlyle  used  to  say  of  a  glass  of  sherry, 
"  it  made  all  cosy  inside." 

But  unfortunately  there  was  the  outer  as  well  as  the 
inner  man  to  be  considered  ;  the  cold  out  of  doors  was 
excruciatingly  intense ;  and  my  well-padded  paletot 
was,  comparatively  speaking,  no  more  a  defence  against 
the  frost  than  a  race-course  dust-coat  would  have  been. 


A   MURDERED   TSAR  319 

To  my  dismay,  I  found  that  in  consequence  of  the  as- 
sassination of  the  Emperor  all  the  shops,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  those  where  articles  of  food  were  sold,  had 
put  up  their  shutters,  and  would  not  reopen  until  after 
the  funeral  of  the  Emperor.  So  I  continued  to  shiver. 
The  ill-conditioned  courier  who  had  been  a  stud  groom 
turned  up  again  in  as  chronically  snarling  a  condition 
as  ever.  "  There's  a  new  English  Ambassador  here,"  he 
remarked  ;  "  Lord  Augustus  Loftus  is  gone  away  ;  and 
you  don't  know  the  new  one."  I  told  him  I  had  had  the 
honour  to  know  the  Earl  of  Dufferin  for  many  years,  and 
that  I  proposed  to  wait  on  His  Excellency  at  once,  and 
bade  him  accompany  me.  I  fancy  that  the  lU-Condi- 
tioned  One  was  rather  pleased  than  otherwise  when  he 
noticed  that  I  had  no  sclioiiba — not  even  a  sheep-skin 
toidojipe  with  the  woolly  side  in.  The  varlet  knew  very 
well,  so  I  was  afterwards  told,  that  I  could  have  sent 
for  a  furrier  and  hired  a  pelisse  by  the  week  or  month  ; 
but  it  was  evidently  the  ex-stud  groom's  mission  to 
gloat  over  the  misery  of  people  who  were  good  to  him. 
Lord  Dufferin  was  kindness  itself ;  and  I  was  also 
glad  to  meet  at  the  Embassy  young  Lord  Frederick 
Hamilton,  the  brother  of  the  Duke  of  Abercorn.  I 
only  mention  his  name  because  in  his  case  I  am  able 
to  recall  an  odd  instance  of  aural  memory  on  my  own 
part.  I  have  often  said  that  I  have  a  most  treacherous 
memory  for  names ;  and  that,  owing  to  imperfect  vi- 
sion, my  recollection  of  faces  is  wretchedly  uncertain  ; 
but  as  the  old  saying  truthfully  reminds  us,  when 
Heaven  closes  one  door  it  opens  another,  and  I  have 
a  singularly  retentive  memory  for  people's  voices. 
Quite  recently,  coming  up  from  Brighton  for  a  day  or 
two,  I  dined  at  the  pleasantest  of  London  clubs,  "  The 
Beefsteak."  During  my  repast  I  noticed  that  a  good- 
looking  gentleman  opposite  to  me  was  eyeing  me  in- 
tently and  smiling  meanwhile.     His  countenance  did 


!20  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 


not  present  the  slightest  purport  or  significance  to 
me  ;  nor  did  there  even  come  over  me  the  dim  impres- 
sion that  I  had  seen  him  at  some  time  in  some  part  or 
another  of  the  world.  He  was  simply  a  "  swell,"  and 
only  impressed  me  as  one.  Presently,  however,  he  be- 
gan to  talk  ;  and  remarked  that  I  did  not  know  in  the 
least  who  he  was  or  where  I  had  last  met  him.  "Yes, 
I  do,"  I  replied  quickly;  "you  are  Lord  Frederick 
Hamilton,  and  I  saw  you  at  the  British  Embassy  at 
St.  Petersburg  twelve  years  ago."  It  was  by  his  voice 
that  I  had  recognised  him. 

Lord  Dufferin  has  gone  through  Hfe,  so  it  has  seemed 
to  me,  with  the  main  object  of  rendering  gentle  ser- 
vices to  those  who  needed  assistance.  He  helped  me 
to  a  material  extent  in  March,  1881,  by  obtaining  for 
me  an  invitation  to  the  house  of  a  wealthy  English 
merchant  whose  windows  commanded  a  near  and  clear 
view  of  the  Winter  Palace,  whence  the  corpse  of  the 
Tsar  was  to  be  borne  across  the  bridge  which  spans 
the  Neva,  to  be  interred  in  the  chapel,  or  rather  the 
cathedral,  of  the  fortress  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  I 
could  have  procured  from  the  Russian  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  or  from  one  of  the  Imperial  Chamberlains,  a 
card  of  admission  to  the  church  ;  but  I  should  have 
had  to  wait  two  or  three  hours  in  the  crowded  edifice, 
and  should  only  have  witnessed  the  funeral  ceremony 
itself,  whereas  from  the  merchant's  residence  I  could 
see  the  whole  stately  procession  winding  its  way  from 
the  palace  to  the  fortress.  I  called  at.  the  Embassy 
early  on  the  morning  of  the  funeral ;  and  Lord  Duf- 
ferin, who  was  in  diplomatic  uniform,  and  who  in- 
tended to  witness  the  first  part  of  the  mournful  page- 
ant, and  then  to  make  his  way  to  the  fortress  and  join 
his  brethren  of  the  Corps  Diplomatique  in  the  church, 
drove  me  in  his  sledge  from  the  Embassy  to  the  close 
neiofhbourhood  of  the  Winter  Palace. 


A   MURDERED   TSAR  32 1 


I  had  by  this  time  provided  myself,  through  the 
intermediary  of  an  old  friend,  then  British  Consul  at 
St.  Petersburg,  with  a  very  comfortable  furred  pe- 
lisse ;  but  I  had  gone  through  some  dire  tribulation 
before  I  obtained  my  schoiiba.  Constant  driving  about 
the  streets,  both  by  day  and  by  night,  had  half  killed 
me  with  cold  ;  and  one  day,  when  it  was  snowing  al- 
most without  intermission,  I  had  constantly  to  throw 
into  the  roadway  masses  of  frozen  snow  which  had  ac- 
cumulated on  the  cushion  at  my  back.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  three  days  before  the  funeral  I  awoke 
in  the  morning  utterly  prostrated  by  an  attack  of  lum- 
bago. The  pain  of  the  ailment  was  excruciating ;  but 
the  worst  of  it  was  that  I  was  physically  unable  to 
stand,  or  sit,  or  dress  myself.  I  sent  for  a  Russian 
doctor,  who  as  usual  spoke  French  fluently.  He  told 
me  that  the  attack  was  not  constitutional,  and  would 
pass  away.  "  There  are  three  ways,"  he  continued, 
"  of  treating  you.  First,  I  could  take  the  case  medic- 
inally— that  would  last,  perhaps,  three  weeks.  Two 
alternatives  remain.  We  might  send  for  the  four  Dale- 
carlian  women."  He  explained  to  me  that  the  four  fe- 
males from  Dalecarlia  were  as  tall  as  grenadiers  and 
as  strong  as  farriers ;  and  that  their  vocation  was  to 
kneel  upon,  punch,  pinch,  smite,  and  buffet  the  bodies 
of  persons  afflicted  with  lumbago,  sciatica,  and  rheu- 
matism. In  brief,  they  were  professors  of  a  rude  kind 
of  massage.  I  declined  their  service.s,  as  I  did  not  wish 
to  become  a  mass  of  bruises.  "  Then  there  is  the  last 
alternative,"  said  the  doctor ;  "  we  will  try  Yody 

I  had  not  the  remotest  conception  of  what  "  Vod'" 
might  be,  but  the  medico  proceeded  to  tell  me  that 
the  medicament  was  iodine.  "Would  its  effects  be 
immediate?"  I  asked.  This  was  Tuesday  morning, 
and  if  I  was  not  well  by  Wednesday  evening  I  should 
consider  myself,  journalistically  speaking,  an  irretriev- 
n. — 21 


322  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

ably  ruined  and  disgraced  man.  "  You  will  be  cured 
in  twenty-four  hours,"  quietly  replied  the  doctor.  He 
brought  his  specific;  and  while  two  friends  held  me 
down,  he  painted  my  veins  with  four  coatings  of  io- 
dine. Possibly  I  shrieked  with  agony  during  the  oper- 
ation, and  it  was  certainly  as  well  that  my  friends  were 
muscularly  strong ;  else  I  am  afraid  that  I  should  have 
"  gone  for  "  that  doctor,  iodine,  paint-brush  and  all  ;  as 
it  was,  by  noon  on  Wednesday  I  was  "  as  fit  as  a  fid- 
dle ;  "  but  my  flesh  was  horribly  raw  ;  and  I  did  not 
care  to  tell  the  Ambassador  that  beneath  my  garments 
I  was  girt  with  cotton-wool  soaked  in  oil.  When  I 
got  to  England  again  I  looked  up  Dr.  Tanner's  "  Index 
of  Diseases ; "  and  found  among  the  local  applications 
for  lumbago,  "iodine  paint,"  which  is  composed  of  io- 
dine, iodide  of  potassium,  and  rectified  spirits  of  wine. 
This  was  the  compost  with  which  I  had  been  badi- 
geonn^ ;  but  it  did  its  work,  with  a  vengeance  ;  and  I 
should  strongly  advise  all  ladies  and  gentlemen  sud- 
denly attacked  with  lumbago  to  try  "  Yod!'  If  they 
would  prefer  a  different  treatment,  they  will  find  that 
the  obliging  Dr.  Tanner  gives  them  a  choice  of  blis- 
ters, or  belladonna  and  aconite,  or  acupuncture,  or 
ironing  the  part,  a  piece  of  brown  paper  being  placed 
between  the  skin  and  the  hot  iron ;  but  I  pin  my  faith 
to  "  Yodr 

The  thoroughfares  through  which  we  drove  were 
densely  crowded  ;  while  the  route  of  the  funeral  cortege 
was  lined  on  each  side  by  troops,  including  several 
batteries  of  artillery.  A  special  police  permit  had  to 
be  obtained  before  a  window  in  a  house  in  the  line  of 
procession  could  be  opened,  since  there  was  no  know- 
ing from  what  casement  a  murderous  shot  might  be 
fired.  The  pageant  was  magnificent  in  the  extreme ; 
but  the  most  touching  part  of  the  spectacle  was  the 
illustrious  group  which  followed  on  foot  on  the  snow- 


A   MURDERED   TSAR  323 

covered  roadway  the  funeral  car  of  Alexander  II. — 
the'young  Emperor  Alexander  III.,  a  numerous  body 
of  the  Princes  of  the  Imperial  family,  and  our  own 
Prince  of  Wales  supporting  the  Chief  Mourner.  It 
was  awful  to  think  when  the  procession  had  entered 
the  fortress,  and  the  minute-guns  were  sullenly  firing 
at  the  close  of  the  ceremony,  that  the  dull  roar  of  the 
cannon  must  have  been  audible  to  the  accomplices  of 
the  assassin  of  the  Tsar,  who  were  immured  in  the 
stone  casements  of  the  citadel. 

As  I  have  said,  the  funeral  itself  I  did  not  see,  but 
on  the  Sunday  following  the  deposition  of  the  body  I 
witnessed  the  lying-in-state  of  the  dead  Tsar  in  the  Ca- 
thedral of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  The  coffin  was  placed 
on  a  dais,  forming  an  inclined  plane,  in  the  middle  of 
the  church,  which  was  hung  with  rich  sable  draper- 
ies, while  on  either  side  the  bier  were  lighted  wax 
candles  in  towering  candle-sticks  of  silver-gilt.  The 
lid  of  the  coffin  had  been  removed,  and  as  the  specta- 
tors passed  in  single  file  they  were  expected  to  incline 
themselves  and  kiss  the  right  hand  of  the  corpse, 
which  hand  was  covered  with  a  piece  of  yellow  silk 
gauze.  The  remains  of  him  who  a  few  days  before 
had  been  Autocrat  of  All  the  Russias  were  clad  in  full 
military  uniform,  and  wnth  a  constellation  of  stars  and 
medals  on  the  breast.  The  body  had  been  embalmed, 
and  the  injuries  in  the  face  skilfully  plugged  and 
painted  over;  below  the  waist,  I  was  told,  the  limbs  of 
the  victim  of  the  devilish  bomb  outrage  were  only  so 
much  padding,  cloth,  and  leather.  "  Oh,  eloquent,  just 
and  mighty  Death  !  what  none  have  Dared  thou  hast 

Done Thou  hast  taken  all  the  Pomp, 

Pride,  and  Ambition  of  Man,  and  Covered  it  over  with 
the  two  Narrow  Words,  Hie  jacety  Thus  wrote,  in 
his  dungeon  in  the  Tower,  Walter  Raleigh  more  than 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 


324  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

Lord  Dufferin  was  so  good  as  to  procure  for  me  a 
ticket  for  the  trial  of  the  Nihilist  conspirators,  whose 
chief,  the  actual  assassin,  had  been  mortally  wounded 
by  his  own  murderous  petard  simultaneously  with  the 
death  of  the  Tsar.  But  my  attending  the  trial  of 
Sophie  Perofskaja,  Hersie,  Heljmann,  Risakoff,  Ribai- 
chick,  and  Michailoff  might  also  have  involved  the 
necessity  of  seeing  those  culprits  hanged  ;  and  since 
that  dismal  private  execution  at  Maidstone  in  1867  I 
had  made  up  my  mind  not  to  be  present  at  the  judicial 
strangulation  of  any  of  my  fellow-creatures.  So  I  re- 
turned home,  after  having  attended  a  deeply  interest- 
ins:  memorial  service  for  the  dead  Tsar,  held  at  a 
mosque  close  to  the  Nevskoi  —  the  Russians  tolerate 
every  religion  except  the  Jewish  one — which  service 
was  attended  by  many  officers  and  soldiers  of  the 
Tartar  regiments  of  the  Guard,  and  by  half  the  hotel 
and  restaurant  waiters  in  the  capital,  who  are  Moham- 
medan Tartars,  and  whom  the  landlords  preferred  to 
Christians,  as  the  Tartars  are  all  teetotallers. 


CHAPTER    LIX 

CORONATION   OF   ALEXANDER  III 

It  was  a  very  different  Russia  that  I  paid  a  flying  visit 
to  in  May,  1883.  The  Tsar  Alexander  III.  was  to  be 
crowned  with  the  utmost  pomp  and  magnificence  at 
Moscow.  I  received  my  usual  instructions  to  depart 
Due  North ;  but  on  this  very  special  occasion  I  was  to 
be  accompanied  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Le  Sage,  who  was  to 
undertake  the  onerous  duties  of  despatching  a  number 
of  telegrams  which  would  certainly  fill  a  formidable 
array  of  columns  in  the  Daily  Telegraph.  We  had  some 
few  difficulties  to  surmount  ere  we  started.  We  were 
politely  but  firmly  informed  that  all  newspaper  corre- 
spondents who  proposed  to  be  present  at  the  Imperial 
Coronation  would  be  expected,  as  a  preliminary,  to 
forward  their  cartes  de  visile  to  the  Chancellerie  of  the 
Russian  Embassy — a  very  sensible  precaution — and  I 
improved  on  the  idea  by  gumming  on  to  my  passport 
half-a-dozen  little  portraits  of  myself  of  the  exact  size 
of  a  postage-stamp,  which  had  been  taken  by  a  friendly 
photographer  in  San  Francisco.  Again,  it  was  con- 
veyed to  us  that  we  could  not  possibly  be  permitted  to 
enter  the  Kremlin  on  the  eventful  27th  May  unless  we 
were  in  uniform  or  in  Court  dress.  Fortunately  for 
Mr.  Le  Sage,  he  had  long  been  a  member  of  the  Court 
of  Lieutenancy  of  the  City  of  London ;  a  proud  posi- 
tion which  entitled  him  to  assume  a  scarlet  tunic  with 
silver  epaulettes,  a  sword  with  a  gilt  scabbard,  and  a 
cocked  hat  and  plumes. 

But  I  had  never  been  to  Court ;  and  as  regards  uni- 


326  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

form  I  was  not  even  a  member  of  the  Ancient  Order 
of  Foresters.  The  obstacle,  I  am  glad  to  say,  soon 
vanished  ;  the  then  Lord  Chamberlain — Lord  Sydney, 
1  think — permitted  me  to  wear  levee  dress,  with  the 
understanding  that  I  was  to  be  presented  at  Court 
directly  on  my  return  home ;  and  it  was  consequently 
in  the  highest  spirits  that  about  five  o'clock  one  sunny 
May  afternoon  we  started  for  the  Continent  by  the 
London,  Chatham  and  Dover  Railway.  At  Berlin  we 
found  our  resident  correspondent,  who  made  much  of 
us  ;  and  without  any  obstacle  we  reached  the  Russian 
frontier.  The  tin  cases  containing  our  gala  costumes 
proved  of  considerable  service  to  us  at  the  Custom 
House  ;  the  sight  of  Mr.  Le  Sage's  scarlet  panoply  and 
plumed  cocked  hat  apparently  induced  in  the  mind  of 
the  douaniers  the  impression  that  he  was  not  a  deputy- 
lieutenant  but  a  major-general  at  the  very  least ;  while 
an  equally  favourable  opinion  of  myself  was  enter- 
tained by  the  officer  who  examined  ray  paraphernalia. 
"  I  can  see  what  you  are,"  he  remarked,  turning  over 
quite  gingerly  my  levee  dress,  "  captain  of  an  English 
gunboat  going  to  join  3'our  ship  at  Cronstadt."  1  did 
not  precisely  own  the  soft  impeachment,  but  I  bowed, 
and,  of  course  accidentally,  placed  three  or  four  choice 
Havanas  on  the  lid  of  the  tin  case,  which— the  cigars, 
not  the  case — the  officer  as  accidentally  pocketed. 

I  found  Russia  considerably  altered  from  the  coun- 
try that  I  had  visited  in  1856  and  1881.  The  most  not- 
able change  that  I  observed  was  what  I  may  call  the 
Sclavonification  of  military  costume.  In  the  days  of 
the  Emperor  Nicholas  and  of  his  successor  German 
uniforms,  both  in  the  Russian  army  and  irr  the  police, 
were  almost  slavishly  copied.  In  1883  the  German 
helmet  or  Pickelhaube  had  entirely  disappeared,  and  the 
cocked  hat  had  almost  as  completely  vanished  ;  the 
substitute  for  this  head-gear  being  the  Circassian  bon- 


CORONATION   OF   ALEXANDER   III  327 

net  or  busby  of  black  Astrakhan  wool.  Another  curi- 
ous innovation  was  visible  in  the  general  discarding  of 
metal  buttons ;  in  place  of  which  you  now  saw  only 
hooks-and-eyes ;  and  the  third  remarkable  social  revolu- 
tion was  visible  when  we  reached  Moscow.  The  hotel- 
keepers  professed  not  to  understand  a  word  either  of 
French  or  German  ;  and  although  I  had  not  quite  for- 
gotten my  Russ,  we  had  hard  work  to  do  before  we 
could  find  the  hotel  to  which  we  had  been  directed.  I 
must  here  mention  that  the  Russian  Government  be- 
haved with  the  greatest  liberality  towards  the  foreign 
representatives  of  the  Press,  who  had  free  quarters 
assigned  to  them  at  a  splendid  and  exclusively  Musco- 
vite hostelr3\  Nay ;  the  Imperial  generosity  went  so 
far  as  to  offer  each  special  correspondent  a  consider- 
able sum  of  money  to  defray  his  travelling  expenses  ; 
and,  finally,  after  the  Coronation  we  were  each  pre- 
sented with  a  decoration  of  silver  and  gold  enamel, 
embellished  with  the  Imperial  crown,  the  double- 
headed  eagle,  and  two  crossed  swords.  I  thought, 
however,  that  my  proprietors  might  think  it  rather  un- 
dignified on  my  part  if  I  played  the  7-6lc  of  a  "  dead- 
head ;  "  so,  while  gratefully  accepting  the  decoration 
— which,  of  course,  I  never  wore — we  politely  declined 
the  free  quarters  and  the  travelling  expenses  ;  and, 
thanks  to  the  assistance  of  a  Dutch  gentleman  to 
whom  we  had  been  recommended  for  business  pur- 
poses, we  obtained  a  billet  at  a  very  comfortable  Ger- 
man hotel  in  the  heart  of  the  city.  I  could  never  cor- 
rectly gather  the  name  of  our  Batavian  friend,  but  it 
was  something  like  "  03'Sterbank,"  by  which  appella- 
tion we  usually  called  him.  He  was,  I  believe,  in  some 
way  connected  with  a  department  of  the  Imperial 
Master  of  the  Ceremonies ;  at  all  events,  I  know  that 
for  a  consideration  he  obtained  for  us,  four  clear  days 
before  the  Coronation,  an  exhaustive  programme  of  the 


328  LIFE   OF   GEORGE  AUGUSTUS   SALA 

ceremonial ;  which  schedule  enabled  me  to  despatch 
to  London  at  least  three  columns  of  readable  matter 
before  the  pageant  itself  took  place. 

Readers  inexperienced  in  the  ways  of  the  great 
newspaper-world  might  open  their  eyes  with  astonish- 
ment, or  smile  the  smile  of  incredulity,  if  I  told  them 
the  amount  of  pounds  sterling  which  we  disbursed 
every  day  at  the  telegraph  office.  I  know  that  my  fre- 
quent recourse  to  the  bank  on  which  I  had  a  letter  of 
credit  seemed  wholly  to  perplex  the  amicable  cashier 
who  handed  me  the  required  cash.  "  What !  "  he 
would  say,  "another  thousand  roubles!  Is  it  baccarat 
GV  ecarte  ?''  I  would  reply,  with  a  smile,  that  it  was 
chess. 

The  Duke  of  Edinburgh  was  staying  at  the  Krem- 
lin ;  and  His  Royal  Highness  sent  for  me  and  promised 
to  render  me  any  assistance  that  was  in  his  power  to 
extend.  At  the  Imperial  Palace,  also,  I  found  Lord 
Wolseley  ;  and  another  British  visitor  of  distinction 
was  Lord  Clanwilliam,  as  representing  the  Royal 
British  Navy.  Among  the  English  newspaper  cor- 
respondents was  my  old  friend  Alfred  Thompson,  ar- 
tist, dramatist,  and  journalist,  who  had  been  sent  out 
to  Moscow  to  represent  the  Daily  Ncivs.  Alfred  had, 
in  his  youthful  days,  been  a  subaltern  in  a  crack  cav- 
alry regiment,  the  Carabiniers ;  so  that  he  was  all 
right  as  regarded  the  wearing  of  uniform.  The  name 
of  the  correspondent  of  the  Standard  has  escaped  me  ; 
but  1  remember  him  through  the  perfect  fluency  with 
which  he  spoke  Russ.  He  told  me  that  it  was  the 
practice  in  modern  journalism,  as  regarded  Russia,  for 
special  correspondents  at  St.  Petersburg  to  spend  at 
least  six  months  in  a  village  ;  boarding  either  with  the 
pope  or  priest,  or  with  the  starosta  or  mayor  ;  so  as  to 
acquire  a  colloquial  familiarity  with  the  soft-flowing 
but  grammatically  thorny  Muscovite  speech.     Finally, 


CORONATION   OF   ALEXANDER   III  329 

I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  most  capable  and  amiable 
journalist,  Mr.  Lowe,  who  was  acting  as  correspondent 
of  the  Times. 

We  witnessed  the  solemn  entrance  of  the  Tsar  into 
Moscow.  We  had  come  provided  with  letters  of  in- 
troduction to  Count  Woronzoff  Daschkoff,  who  had 
courteously  handed  us  over  to  an  exalted  Tchinovnik 
named  Waganoff,  at  whose  office  we  called  every  fore- 
noon, and  who  kept  us  pleasantly  au  courant  with 
everything  of  note  that  was  going  on.  M.  Waganoff 
put  us  in  communication  with  the  Military  Governor 
of  the  Kremlin  ;  and  this  dignitary  gave  us  permission 
to  witness  the  spectacle  of  the  Imperial  entry  from  the 
ramparts  of  the  palace-fortress  ;  where  our  compan- 
ions were  a  crowd  of  officers  of  the  Imperial  Guard, 
whose  views  were  not  exclusively  Sclavonic,  and  who 
chatted  with  us  very  cordially,  telling  us  a  number  of 
things  worth  listening  to  and  remembering.  The  cor- 
tege itself  seemed  to  me  to  be  of  interminable  length. 
It  was  not  the  first  time  that  I  had  seen  the  Imperial 
state  carriages.  I  had  witnessed  their  preliminary  ex- 
hibition in  1856  prior  to  the  Coronation  of  Alexander 
II.  Many  of  them  are  sufficiently  antique  vehicles,  a 
few  of  them  even  dating  from  the  reign  of  the  Em- 
press Elizabeth  —  heavy  coaches  and  chariots,  brave 
in  carving  and  gilding,  with  their  panels  profusely 
adorned  with  sham  diamonds,  and  drawn  by  tall  grey 
Holstein  horses.  But  what  most  struck  me  was  the 
magnificence  of  the  costumes  of  the  Oriental  poten- 
tates who  had  come  to  Moscow  to  do  homage  to  the 
White  Tsar.  The  Khan  of  Khiva  and  the  Ameer  of 
Bokhara  were  both  there,  attended  by  a  numerous  es- 
cort of  Oriental  magnificos  ;  and  they  and  the  housings 
of  their  steeds  were  one  mass  of  brilliants,  rubies,  em- 
eralds, pearls,  and  precious  stuffs.  It  was  not  then  my 
fortune  to  have  witnessed  an  Indian  Vice-regal  Dur- 


330  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

bar — I  was  to  see  one  in  1886 — and  my  breath  was  al- 
most taken  away  by  the  superb  display,  a  little  bar- 
baric in  some  of  its  details,  which  was  visible  from  the 
ramparts  of  the  Kremlin. 

Two  or  three  days  afterwards  the  Coronation  took 
place.  It  were  useless  to  dwell  in  detail  on  a  cere- 
monial which  was  described  at  fullest  length  in  the 
newspapers  of  the  time.  I  could  have  swollen  these 
volumes  to  thrice  their  size  had  I  distended  them  with 
excerpts  from  my  writings  as  a  newspaper  correspond- 
ent ;  but  my  object,  throughout,  has  been  to  place  my 
readers  behind  the  scenes  of  my  life,  and  not  to  parade 
myself  behind  the  public  footlights.  I  will  just  hint, 
however,  that  the  Tsar,  who  is,  like  Melchisedec,  Priest 
as  well  as  King,  and  is  thrice  anointed,  entered  the 
Ikonostast,  or  altar-screen  ;  received  the  Imperial  dia- 
dem from  the  hands  of  the  Patriarch  ;  consecrated  it 
on  the  altar,  and  crowned  himself,  and  subsequently 
the  Empress.  To  me  the  most  interesting  scene  in 
the  pageant  took  place  immediately  after  the  Coro- 
nation. I  had  a  Russian  friend  who  was  a  correspond- 
ent of  the  Journal  dc  St.  Pctcrsboiirg ;  and  he  got  me  a 
huge  green-and-white  card  of  admission  to  the  palace 
of  the  Kremlin  itself.  Our  object  was  to  see  the  Tsar 
at  dinner. 

We  were  frequently  stopped  by  the  police.  But,  to 
begin  with,  we  were  both  in  Court  dress  ;  and  then,  in 
accordance  with  the  advice  of  my  companion,  I  con- 
tinually waved  the  big  green-and-white  ticket  above 
my  head  and  shouted  "  Billet !  Billet !  "  so  that  at 
length,  pushing  through  a  crowd  of  courtiers  and  offi- 
cers, we  reached  the  foot  of  the  grand  staircase  of  the 
palace.  My  companion  knew  the  topography  of  the 
edifice  well,  and  eventually  we  reached  a  gallery,  look- 
ing down  from  which  we  could  just  descry  His  Im- 
perial Majesty  sitting  alone  at  a  table  not  much  bigger 


CORONATION   OF  ALEXANDER   III  33 1 

than  the  stand  of  a  sewing-machine.  The  Tsar  wore 
his  crown  ;  but  a  great  officer  of  the  household  held 
his  sceptre,  and  another  the  orb.  The  courtiers  who 
served  him  knelt  as  they  placed  the  dishes  on  the 
table  ;  and  my  companion  told  me  that  the  repast  was 
a  normally  Muscovite  one,  beginning  with  the  na- 
tional dish  of  stcJii,  or  cabbage-soup.  On  the  whole, 
it  struck  me  that  the  Tsar  of  All  the  Russias  looked 
slightl}'  uncomfortable  at  his  repast. 

I  experienced  a  slight  disappointment  before  I  re- 
turned to  the  hotel.  Lord  Wolseley  had  promised  to 
give  me  some  inner  details  of  the  banquet ;  but  when  I 
strove  to  find  him  in  his  quarters  at  the  Kremlin  my 
progress  was  impeded  by  a  gigantic  sentry  of  the 
Preobajianski  Guards,  who  absolutely  refused  to  let 
me  pass.  That  check,  however,  did  not  so  very  much 
matter.  Before  even  the  Coronation  was  over  1  had 
finished  another  column  of  matter,  hastily  pencilled 
in  the  most  abbreviated  longhand  on  slips  of  paper; 
mv  cocked  hat  serving^  as  a  writino:-desk.  I  handed 
my  manuscript  to  Mr.  Le  Sage,  who  quietly  rose  from 
his  seat,  and  with  a  grave  and  dignified  manner  made 
his  way  through  the  crowd.  I  watched  his  retreating 
figure  narrowly  ;  and  I  noted  that,  when  he  had  got 
into  the  open,  his  slow  and  measured  pace  quickened 
into  a  trot ;  and  that  then,  tucking  his  sword  under 
his  arm,  he  ran  as  hard  as  ever  he  could  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  telegraph  office.  I  had  about  two  and  a 
half  columns  to  write  after  the  banquet  in  the  Krem- 
lin ;  so  returning  to  the  hotel  and  refreshing  myself 
with  a  meat-pie  and  a  tumbler  of  hot  tea  without  milk 
or  sugar,  but  with  a  slice  of  lemon  in  it,  1  sat  down 
and  set  to  work.  I  have  never  been  a  ra})id  writer ; 
and  it  took  me  three  hours  and  a  half  to  commit  be- 
tween three  and  four  thousand  words  to  paper.  My 
labours,  as   it  turned  out,  were  enlivened  by   the  un- 


332  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

conscious  assistance  of  the  dvornik,  or  porter,  who  oc- 
cupied a  little  hutch  in  the  courtyard  of  the  hotel. 
Full  of  exuberant  patriotism,  this  worthy  wearer  of  a 
greasy  caftan  and  a  red  cotton  shirt  began  about  six 
o'clock  to  sing  a  loyal  song  in  I  know  not  how  many 
verses ;  accompanying  himself  on  the  balalaika,  a  kind 
of  lute  of  triangular  form  ;  and  quaffing  at  short  inter- 
vals copious  draughts  of  vodka.  Then  his  voice  began 
to  quaver ;  then  he  hiccoughed  ;  then  he  was  sick ; 
and  then  he  went  to  sleep  and  snored.  I  had  just  be- 
gun my  second  column  when  Ivan  Ivanovich  woke 
up  ;  resumed  his  song ;  again  got  tipsy,  and  was  again 
indisposed.  He  was  at  his  third  "  turn  "  when  I 
turned  down  my  lamp. 

There  was  just  one  other  little  item  in  connection 
with  the  Coronation  of  Alexander  III.  I  compute  that 
altogether  we  sent  home  about  seven  columns  of  de- 
scriptive matter  to  Fleet  Street.  Upon  my  word  ;  the 
next  morning,  the  entire  narrative  appeared  in  Russian 
in  the  Official  Gazette  of  Moscow.  Some  astute  employe', 
who  knew  English,  had  deftly  translated  my  article 
slip  by  slip  before  it  was  placed  on  the  wires.  A 
smarter  device  of  practical  journalism  I  fail  to  re- 
member. Into  the  ethics  of  the  transaction  I  do  not 
propose  to  enter.  Ethics  in  Holy  Russia  are  still  in 
their  infancy. 


CHAPTER   LX 

TO   THE   ANTIPODES 

Forbearing  reader,  I  am  approaching  the  conclusion 
of,  I  hope,  a  not  intolerably  tiresome  performance. 
For  some  years  I  had  entertained  a  project  of  visiting 
the  Australian  Colonies,  and  I  was  told  by  many  ex- 
perienced friends  that  I  should  make  much  money 
there  if  I  delivered  a  series  of  amusing  lectures  on  my 
journalistic  and  viatorial  adventures.  Now,  I  have 
never  been  a  good  lecturer.  In  the  first  instance,  I 
have  too  rapid  an  utterance  to  be  easily  followed  by 
my  audience  ;  and  for  that  reason,  probably,  although  I 
have  continually  made  speeches  in  public,  my  remarks 
have  very  rarely  been  reported  at  length.  When  I 
have  been  bent  on  making  a  lengthened  speech  on  some 
matter  of  moment,  I  have  sent  for  a  Parliamentary 
shorthand-writer  ;  paid  him  his  guinea,  and  dictated  the 
speech  to  him  ;  then,  when  he  has  transcribed  his  notes 
in  longhand,  I  have  taken  the  manuscript  down  to  the 
dinner  or  the  meeting  at  which  I  was  to  speak,  and 
handed  the  "  copy  "  to  the  gentlemen  of  the  Press,  who 
have  made  use  of  it  or  omitted  to  use  it  just  as  they 
pleased.  Another  obstacle  to  my  success  as  a  lecturer 
has  been  the  bad  habit,  of  which  I  have  never  been  able 
to  cure  myself,  of  cruising  about  the  platform  with  my 
hands  in  my  pockets ;  so  that  very  often  that  which  1 
had  been  saying  has  been  quite,  or  nearly,  inaudible  to 
my  hearers.  Finally,  I  am  obliged  to  speak  extempore : 
first,  because  I  am  unable  to  learn  anything  of  consider- 
able length  by  heart ;  and  next,  because  I  am  partially 


334  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

blind  and  cannot  read  even  the  largest  type  with  ease 
by  lamp-light. 

However,  I  determined  to  make  the  attempt ;  and 
havinsf  arrano^ed  in  mv  mind  a  oreneral  scheme  for  four 
lectures — one  on  Wars  and  Revolutions  which  I  had 
seen  ;  another  upon  Foreign  Lands  which  I  had  visited, 
a  third  on   British  Journalism,   and  a  fourth  on  the 
Statesmen  and   Politicians  of  ray  time — a  gentleman 
named  Bowden  was  enthusiastic  and  ill-advised  enough 
to  pay  me  i^500  in  advance  for  ten  discourses,  to  be 
delivered  in  the  United  States  ;  as  it  was  by  the  trans- 
atlantic route  that  I  had  resolved  to  visit  the  Antipodes. 
And   he  further  covenanted  to  defray   my   travelling 
and  hotel  expenses  between  New  York  and  Chicago — 
stipulating,  however,  that  these  expenses  were  not  to 
include  any  kind  of  intoxicating  liquor.    It  was  through 
the  intermediary  of  my  good  friend  and  then  solicitor, 
Mr.  George  Lewis,  of  Ely  Place,  that  the  agreement 
was  concluded  ;  and  I  remember  distinctly  the  keen 
gratification  which  I  felt  when  Mr.  Lewis  handed  me 
a  crisp  Bank  of  England  note  for  £  500 ;  remarking  at 
the  same  time  that  cheques  in  early  transactions  were 
sometimes  of  a  phantom  nature. 

Then  came  the  question  of  who  was  to  undertake 
the  management  of  my  lectures  in  Australia.  I  had 
had  some  embryo  negotiations  with  Mr.  Smythe,  of 
Melbourne,  familiarly  known  in  Australia  as  "  Little 
Smythe,"  and  whom  I  have  always  regarded  as  the 
Napoleon  of  lecturing-agents.  He  had  been  the  entre- 
preneur of  Archibald  Forbes  on  his  lecturing  tour  in 
the  Colonies ;  and  had  helped  him  to  clear  a  sum  of 
some  iJ" 1 2,000  sterling.  But  Mr.  Sm3-the  wished  to 
have  personally  a  taste  of  my  quality  as  a  lecturer, 
before  closing  with  me  ;  and  suggested  that  I  should 
pay  his  passage  home  and  back  to  Melbourne  in 
order  that   he  might  judge  of   my  style  as  an  elocu- 


TO   THE   ANTIPODES  335 

tionist;  to  which  I  replied  that  I  would  see  him  in 
the  lowest  pit  of  Tartarus  before  I  parted  with  so 
much  as  a  guinea  ;  whereupon  the  embryonic  negotia- 
tions fell  through.  It  chanced,  however,  that  there 
was  in  England  at  the  time  a  ver}-  able  actor,  Mr. 
George  Rignold,  who,  conjointly  with  a  Mr.  Alison, 
was  the  lessee  of  the  Theatre  Royal,  Melbourne,  Mr. 
Rignold  was  an  intimate  friend  of  my  next-door  neigh- 
bour, Lewis  Wingfield  ;  and  he  expressed  great  eager- 
ness to  come  to  terms  with  me  for  a  course  of  lect- 
ures ;  the  conditions  were  that  1  should  receive  half 
the  gross  takings  of  every  entertainment,  he  paying 
all  advertising  expenses,  the  hire  of  theatres  and 
halls,  and  the  salary  of  i^io  a  week  of  an  agent  -  in - 
advance. 

These  matters  being  settled,  it  was  about  Christmas- 
time I  bade  adieu  to  my  friends.  I  shrank  from  expos- 
ing my  wife  to  the  fatigue  of  a  journey  across  the 
American  continent ;  so  we  agreed  she  should  go  to 
Australia  by  long-sea ;  and  I  secured  a  state-room  for 
her  in  one  of  the  steamships  of  the  Orient  Line  which 
touch  at  Naples.  I  went  down  to  St.  Leonards  to  bid 
farewell  to  my  dear  old  friend,  Viscountess  Comber- 
mere.  Then  I  dined  with  the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts, 
who  gave  me  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the  King  of 
the  Sandwich  Islands,  whom  I  had  previously  met  at 
her  villcggiatura  at  Holly  Lodge  ;  and  finally  Lord 
Rosebery  bade  me  God-speed,  and  furnished  me  with 
letters  to  the  Governors  and  Prime  Ministers  of  all 
the  Australasian  Colonies  except  New  South  Wales : 
the  Governor  of  which.  Lord  Augustus  Loftus,  I  had 
the  honour  to  know. 

My  wife  and  I  held  our  Christmas  dinner,  not  in 
Mecklenburgh  Square,  where  all  the  furniture  had  been 
laid  up  in  ordinary,  but  at  the  Midland  Hotel,  St.  Pan- 
eras ;    where  among  our  guests  were   Mr.  and   Mrs. 


336  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

Labouchere.  On  Boxing  Day,  1884,  my  wife  and  I 
went  down  to  Liverpool,  where  I  embarked  on  board 
a  big  Cunarder  bound  for  New  York.  The  passage 
was  a  horribly  tempestuous  one  ;  but  I  have  been  in  a 
storm,  morally  and  physically  speaking,  for  the  best 
part  of  my  life ;  and,  fortunately,  1  am  not  subject  to 
sea-sickness;  although  since  my  illness  in  1873  I  have 
never  possessed  proper  sea-legs.  Off  Sandy  Hook  Mr. 
Bowden  boarded  us  in  a  tender,  and  straightway  con- 
ducted me  to  the  New  York  Hotel,  Broadway,  where 
1  found  a  group  of  interviewing  journalists  awaiting 
my  arrival.  They  drank  a  great  deal  of  champagne  ; 
smoked  a  large  number  of  cigars,  and  published  the 
next  morning  articles  varying  in  tone  about  my  views 
on  all  kinds  of  topics,  my  attire,  and  my  Nose.  I  de- 
livered my  first  lecture  not  at  New  York,  but  at  Bos- 
ton ;  the  audience  was  a  large  but  not  a  crowded  one  ; 
although  the  chair  was  taken  by  the  genial  "  Autocrat 
of  the  Breakfast  Table,"  the  late  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes.  The  next  lecture  was  attended  by  an  even 
smaller  gathering,  and  the  third  by  a  thinner  one  still. 
Mr.  Bowden  was  inclined  to  think  that  the  presence 
in  Boston  of  Madame  Adelina  Patti,  who  was  giving  a 
series  of  concerts  there,  had  something  to  do  with  the 
paucity  of  my  patrons  ;  and  then  it  occurred  to  him 
that  what  was  known  as  "  The  Week  of  Prayer  "  was 
in  progress  in  the  capital  of  Massachusetts,  and  that 
many  seriously-minded  people  had  been  deterred  by 
devotional  reasons  from  coming  to  hear  me. 

So  back  we  went  to  New  York,  where  I  was  splen- 
didly entertained  at  dinner  by  the  members  of  the 
Lotos  Club.  Among  the  after-dinner  speakers  were 
the  facetious  General  Horace  Porter,  and  the  equally 
humorous  lawyer  and  orator  Mr.  Chauncey  Depew, 
who  made  a  great  point  in  his  speech  by  saying  that  I 
was  going  to  Australia  by    way  of    Portland,  in  the 


TO   THE   ANTIPODES  337 


State  of  Maine :  a  city  which  I  never  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  visiting ;  but  he  repeated  the  assertion  over 
and  over  again,  and  every  time  he  reiterated  it  the 
company  laughed  uproariously :  —  a  circumstance 
which  strengthened  a  long-existing  conviction  in  my 
mind  that  in  after-dinner  speaking  and  "  stage-gag- 
ging "  you  have  only  to  continually  repeat  something 
—"  What's  o'clock  ?  "  or  "  That's  the  idea  !  "  or  "  How 
do  you  feel  now?"  or  "Still  I  am  not  happy!" — to 
excite  the  hilarity  of  your  hearers. 

My  lectures  at  Chickering  Hall,  New  York,  were 
passably  well-attended  ;  but  I  had  a  very  sparse  audi- 
ence at  Brooklyn,  where  in  the  chair  in  the  church 
where  I  discoursed  was  the  well-known  American 
divine,  the  Rev.  De  Witt  Talmage.  At  Philadelphia 
I  had  an  overflowing  audience,  chiefly  due,  I  should 
say,  to  the  exertions  of  Mr.  George  W.  Childs. 
Washington,  where  the  wintry  weather  was  terribly 
severe,  turned  out  a  miserable  failure  ;  but  I  spent  a 
pleasant  time  there  as  the  guest  of  Eugene  Schuyler, 
at  whose  house  I  met  General  Sherman  and  General 
"  Phil "  Sheridan.  I  had  the  honour,  also,  of  being 
presented  to,  and  holding  a  long  conversation  with, 
the  President  of  the  Republic,  Mr.  Chester  Arthur; 
and  I  renewed  my  friendship  with  Senator  Bayard. 
At  the  Capitol  I  was  introduced  to  an  American  war- 
rior, lawyer,  and  statesman,  of  whom  I  had  heard  a 
great  deal,  and  concerning  whom  during  the  War  of 
Secession  I  had  written  frequently,  not  altogether  in 
a  complimentary  manner.  This  was  General  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  Butler.  He  Avas  most  genial ;  and 
asked  me  whether  I  had  ever  been  at  New  Orleans. 
I  replied  that  I  had  sojourned  for  a  considerable  time 
in  the  Crescent  City  in  1879.  '*  Ah  !  "  he  cheerfully 
remarked,  "  if  you  had  been  down  at  Orleans  in  1864 
I  would  most  certainly  have  hanged  you — Yes,  sir !  " 
II. — 22 


338  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

and  I  thoroughly  believe  that  the  General  would  have 
been  as  good  as  his  word. 

A  most  decided,  uncompromising  personage  "  Ben  " 
Butler.  It  is  true  that  rude  people  used  to  call  out 
"Spoons!"  when  he  appeared  at  the  theatre:  the 
derisive  exclamation  being  founded  on  the  clearly 
libellous  calumny  that  when  in  command  at  New 
Orleans  he  had  shown  a  penchant  for  appropriating 
the  valuables  of  recalcitrant  Southerners  ;  but,  be  it 
as  it  may.  General  Butler  struck  me  as  being  a  born 
ruler  of  men.  I  remember  his  coming  to  take  mili- 
tary command  at  New  York  late  in  '64,  when  politi- 
cal riots,  fomented  by  the  Democratic  party,  were  ap- 
prehended. His  very  arrival  inspired  a  wholesome 
terror.  He  was  waited  upon  at  his  head-quarters  at 
the  Fifth  iVvenue  Hotel  by  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen 
of  the  Empire  City.  An  American  friend  who  was 
present  on  the  occasion  observed  that  when  the  depu- 
tation retired  from  General  Butler's  awe-exciting  pres- 
ence, "  their  socks  were  full  of  toe-nails."  B.  B.,  they 
knew,  was  not  a  man  to  be  trifled  with. 

Worse  luck  in  Baltimore  ;  although  my  good  friend 
Mr.  Otho  Williams  and  his  accomplished  daughter. 
Miss  Susan  Williams,  did  all  they  could  for  me.  Still 
direr  misfortune  at  Cincinnati.  Here  the  hitherto 
cheery  Mr.  Bowden  fairly  lost  heart,  and  wrote  me  a 
letter  saying  that  there  was  no  armour  against  Fate, 
and  that  he  must  "  chuck  the  lectures  up."  He  added 
that  he  had  made  arrangements  for  me  to  lecture  at 
St.  Louis  and  at  Chicago ;  but  that  I  must  bear  the 
expenses  myself,  and  that  he  intended  to  go  to  Buffalo 
for  a  change  of  air.  I  have  never  seen  him  since,  but 
T  met  a  relative  of  his  at  San  Francisco,  to  whom  I  re- 
lated the  story  of  his  unsuccessful  speculation  in  my 
brains  and  tongue.  The  sole  comment  of  the  gentle- 
man at  San  Francisco  was  "  Ah  !  just  so;  it's  so  like 


TO   THE   ANTIPODES  339 

him."  Why  so  like  him  ?  Was  he  always  giving 
away  five-hundred-poiind  notes  in  wild-cat  schemes,  1 
wonder?  Henry  Irving  and  Ellen  Terry  were  play- 
ing at  Chicago  when  1  arrived  there,  and  the  presence 
of  those  admirable  artists,  who  were  drawing  overflow 
houses  every  night,  militated,  of  course,  against  my 
chances  of  success.  The  last  straw  that  broke  the 
camel's  back  was  the  circumstance  that  Mark  Twain, 
who  came  to  see  me,  was  himself  lecturing  in  the  city. 

However,  I  did  my  best.  I  gave  away  three  hun- 
dred cards  of  admission  to  the  clerks  at  the  Grand 
Pacific  Hotel.  Henry  Irving  likewise  consented  to 
distribute  another  hundred  passes,  and  I  had  a  fairly 
well-filled  house;  while  the  money  taken  at  the  doors 
just  paid  for  the  hire  of  the  hall  and  the  cost  of  ad- 
vertising. Lecturing,  so  the  proprietor  of  the  hall 
was  good  enough  to  tell  me  when  he  gave  me  a  re- 
ceipt for  his  charges,  was  "  played  out "  in  the  States. 
I  thoroughly  agreed  with  him  ;  and  resolved  to  keep 
m}^  mouth  shut  in  public  until  I  reached  the  Antip- 
odes. 

But  the  asrent  and  I  were  both  mistaken.  I  went 
to  Omaha  ;  crossed  the  Rockies,  and  descended  the 
Pacific  Slope  in  the  usual  adorable  spring  weather. 
At  Sacramento  I  found  the  editor  of  an  important  San 
Franciscan  paper,  who  had  come  to  welcome  me  to 
the  Golden  State  ;  and  with  him  was  an  Italian  gen- 
tleman, whose  name  I  have  forgotten,  but  whom  I 
will  call  Risotto.  He  was  of  Semitic  extraction,  and 
he  was  most  anxious  that  I  should  deliver  a  course  of 
six  lectures  at  'Frisco.  I  frankly  told  him  of  my  fail- 
ure in  the  Northern  and  Western  States,  and  warned 
him  that  to  speculate  in  myself  was  a  perilous  vent- 
ure. "■  Accidente  ! ''  he  made  answer.  "  Dese  eastern 
folk,  dey  know  noting,  noting  at  all.  You  shall  draw 
crowds  efery  night,  or  my  name  is  not  Risotto.    Corpo 


340  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

di  Bacco  !  "  He  offered  me  the  usual  terms  of  fifty 
per  cent,  on  the  gross  takings.  I  agreed  ;  and  arrived 
at  San  Francisco  quite  in  a  merry  mood,  and  took  up 
my  old  quarters  at  the  Palace  Hotel.  My  success  as 
a  lecturer  was  triumphant.  The  theatre  in  which  I 
held  forth  was  crammed  every  night ;  and  my  impres- 
ario was  only  disappointed  at  my  declining — through 
cautious  apprehension  that  it  might  come  to  the  ears 
of  the  Australian  Mrs.  Grundy — to  lecture  on  the  Sab- 
bath. 

Punctually  at  ten  o'clock  every  morning  the  ener- 
getic Neapolitan  used  to  wait  upon  me  with  a  long 
rouleau  of  gold  eagles  or  twenty-dollar  pieces,  and   I 
took  about  three  hundred  pounds'  worth  of  these  hand- 
some coins  to  Australia  and  sold  them  to  the  Commer- 
cial Bank  at  Melbourne.     Whenever  he  handed  over 
the  rouleau  to  me,  my  friend  used  to  ask,  "  Are  you 
content?"     "  Contentissimo,''  I  would  reply.     "  Yes,"  he 
would  continue,  "  this  is  what  Risotto   de  Neapolitan 
Chew  can  do.     Dose  eastern  folk,  dey   know   noting  ; 
dey  have  teste  di  formaggio.     Accidente  !  "     The  mem- 
bers of  the  Bohemian  Club,  who  are  no  more  Bohemian 
in  their  ways  than  the  members  of  the  Lotos  Club  at 
New  York  are  eaters  of  the  zizypJms,  entertained  me 
at  a  grand  banquet,  on  the  morrow  of  which  I  embarked 
on  board  a  steamer  bound  for  Auckland,  New  Zealand. 
My  Italian  friend  saw  me  off ;  and  just  as  the  ship  was 
starting  he  clasped  me  fraternally  by  the  hand,  say- 
ing, "  Got  bless  you  !     Risotto  the   Neapolitan  Chew 
bids  you  farewell.     Be  happy,  carissimo.     I  have  made 
much  more  money  than  you." 

The  steamer  had  a  right  good  English  skipper  and  a 
Chinese  crew.  The  Celestial  stewards  were  continu- 
ally winking  and  simpering,  but  they  were  civil  and 
attentive.  There  was  a  dead  calm  on  the  Pacific  ;  and 
for  seven   days  we  ploughed   our  way  through  what 


TO   THE   ANTIPODES  34 1 

seemed  an  unbroken  sheet  of  molten  glass.  We  did 
not  meet  a  shark;  but  we  saw  several  "schools"  of 
porpoises  and  a  few  albatrosses.  At  the  week's  end 
we  made  the  harbour  of  Honolulu,  where  everybody 
within  hail  seemed  to  be  crying  "  Aloha  !  "  Not  being 
skilled  in  the  Hawaiian  tongue,  I  am  quite  ignorant  as 
to  what  "Aloha!"  may  mean;  but  I  take  it  to  be  a 
conventional  exclamation  equivalent  to  the  English 
"  All  right,"  the  American  "  Bully  for  you,"  and  the 
Spanish  "■  Honibre !''  So  soon  as  I  landed  I  was  bus- 
tled by  some  newly  made  friends  into  a  wagonnette  and 
conveyed  to  the  Royal  Palace,  a  handsome  stone  edi- 
fice, of  architectural  pretensions  quite  equalling  those 
of  the  Schloss  of  a  German  Grand  Duchy,  and  stand- 
ing in  tastefully  laid-out  grounds,  rainbow-hued  with 
tropical  plants  and  flowers.  There  was  a  sentinel  in  a 
smart  uniform  on  guard  at  the  entrance  gate;  and  a 
few  more  soldiers  were  lounging  about  at  the  door  of 
the  guard-room. 

His  Hawaiian  Majesty  was  not  residing  at  the  Pal- 
ace itself ;  he  was  dwelling  in  a  commodious  wooden 
bungalow  in  the  grounds.  I  sent  in  my  card  ;  and  in 
a  few  minutes  I  was  ushered  into  the  presence  of  the 
late  King  David  Laamea  Kalakaua. 

The  Royal  sitting-room  was  simply  but  elegantly  fur- 
nished ;  and  behind  the  arm-chair  of  the  occupant 
were  two  tall  book-cases  full  of  well-bound  volumes. 
The  King  rose  when  I  entered  ;  gave  me  his  hand, 
bade  me  be  seated ;  and  during  a  prolonged  audience 
expressed,  among  other  things,  the  hope  that  I  was 
going  to  stop  at  least  a  month  at  Hawaii,  and  "  visit 
the  largest  volcano  in  the  world."  I  had  to  state,  with 
regret,  that  the  steamer  was  leaving  at  the  expiration 
of  four  hours.  I  found  His  Majesty  a  stalwart  and 
well-built  gentleman,  with  an  intelligent  expression  of 
countenance,  and  speaking  excellent  English.     When 


342  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

in  the  afternoon  the  steamer  left  Honolulu,  the  King 
sent  down  his  own  private  band,  with  a  German  band- 
master, to  bid  us  farewell ;  and  the  friendly,  choco- 
late-coloured Polynesians  pelted  us  with  flowers 
and  oranges.  In  another  week  we  were  at  Apia  in  the 
Samoan  Islands ;  and  another  seven  da}- s  brought 
us  safely  to  Auckland,  always  in  unremitting  sunny 
and  windless  weather.  I  forget  at  what  stage  of  our 
voyage  we  crossed  the  Line  ;  but  I  know  that  Neptune 
did  not  make  his  appearance  on  board  ;  nor  do  I  re- 
member when  it  was  that  we  lost  a  day  ;  but  I  can 
vouch  for  the  fact  that  on  a  certain  Wednesday  the 
captain  caused  to  be  affixed  to  the  looking-glass  in  the 
saloon  this  brief  notice,  "  To-morrow  will  be  Friday." 

It  was  on  a  Sunday  morning  that  we  arrived  at 
Auckland.  A  party  of  journalists  came  off  in  a  boat 
and  boarded  the  steamer  ;  and  I  was  marched  off  to 
the  principal  hotel,  the  smiling  landlady  of  which  es- 
tablishment informed  me  that  Miss  Genevieve  Ward, 
the  trag^dicjinc,  had  been  staying  in  the  house,  and 
had  just  left  for  the  Hot  Lakes.  After  luncheon,  the 
steamer  again  took  her  departure,  and  on  the  fifth 
morning  aftei'wards  we  entered  the  indescribably 
beautiful  harbour  of  Sydney,  and  anchored  at  the  Cir- 
cular Quay.  The  Mayor  of  Sydney  and  Mr.  Alison, 
one  of  my  entrepreneurs,  were  waiting  for  me  ;  and  I 
was  told  that  my  first  lecture  was  to  be  delivered  in 
the  Town  Hall,  Melbourne,  on  the  morrow  of  St. 
Patrick's  Day.  After  luncheon,  I  went  to  Government 
House  ;  paid  my  respects  to  Lord  Augustus  Loftus ; 
and  was  subsequently  conducted  to  the  Public  Offices, 
where  I  was  introduced  to  most  of  the  Cabinet  Min- 
isters, including  a  great  friend  of  Lord  Rosebery,  the 
late  Hon.  William  Bede  Dalley,  who  had  been  mainly 
instrumental  in  sending  the  New  South  Wales  contin- 
gent to  the  Soudan. 


TO   THE   ANTIPODES  343 

Mr.  Dalley  was  one  of  the  most  cultured  gentlemen 
and  the  most  fluent  orators  I  ever  had  the  honour  to 
meet.  The  Postmaster-General  presented  me  with  a 
free  railway  pass  available  for  some  months  for  my- 
self and  my  wife  ;  and  I  may  here  mention  that  every 
one  of  the  Australasian  Colonies  showed  us  similar 
courtesy,  and  it  never  cost  us  a  penn}-  for  railway 
travelling  during  our  stay  in  the  Colonies.  Before 
leaving  for  Melbourne  the  members  of  the  Atheneeum 
Club — a  society  in  which  Lord  Rosebery  during  his 
stay  in  Australia  took  great  interest — entertained  me 
at  dinner,  the  chair  being  occupied  by  Mr.  Dalley. 
The  railway  journey  from  the  capital  of  New  South 
Wales  to  that  of  Victoria  occupied  from  six  in  the 
evening  until  about  eleven  the  following  morning. 
But  midway,  at  the  frontier  of  the  two  colonies,  there 
was  an  examination  of  luggage  at  a  Victorian  custom- 
house. The  line  of  railway  seemed  to  run  principally 
through  tractless  forests  of  tall  gum-trees.  At  the 
railway  terminus  at  Melbourne  I  found  my  wife  and 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Rignold  waiting  for  me  on  the 
platform  ;  and  we  at  once  adjourned  to  Menzies' 
Hotel,  then,  and  perhaps  now,  the  very  best  hotel  in 
Australia. 

I  found  Melbourne  a  really  astonishing  city,  with 
broad  streets  full  of  handsome  shops,  and  crowded 
with  bustling,  well-dressed  people.  For  two  days  we 
held  almost  continuous  receptions  at  the  hotel ;  and  I 
wish  that  I  had  preserved  the  hundreds  of  cards  of  the 
ladies  and  gentlemen  who  were  so  kind  as  to  visit  us. 
The  next  evening  I  lectured  for  two  hours  at  the 
Town  Hall,  which  was  crowded,  and  the  receipts 
amoimted  to  more  than  ^^300.  At  the  second  lecture 
the  aggregate  takings  were  only  ;^8o.  I  am  afraid,  to 
begin  with,  that  the  hall  was  much  too  large  for  my 
purpose,  and  that  my  voice  was   scarcely  audible  to 


344       LIFE  OF  GEORGE  AUGUSTUS  SALA 

the  occupants  of  the  back  seats.  I  remember  at  my 
first  lecture  being  struck  by  two  very  curious  circum- 
stances. First,  that  what  I  intended  to  be  a  glowing 
eulogium  on  Mr.  Gladstone  was  received  in  dead  si- 
lence; and  that  every  allusion  I  made  to  Lord  Beacons- 
field  was  responded  to  by  a  thunderous  storm  of  hand- 
clapping  and  cheering. 

I  went  to  Government  House  ;  was  received  by  Sir 
Henry  Loch,  and  dined  with  His  Excellency,  who,  with 
Lady  Loch,  was  present  at  my  third  lecture  ;  but  I 
must  frankly  own  that  as  a  lecturer  I  was  not  particu- 
larly successful  in  Melbourne.  I  realised,  however, 
large  sums  in  Australia.  In  Sydney  I  did  remarkably 
well ;  and  in  New  Zealand  even  better  in  a  financial 
sense  : — my  agent  there  being  the  "  Little  Smythe  " 
with  whom  I  had  had  the  embryonic  negotiations  al- 
ready mentioned.  I  earned,  moreover,  between  March 
and  December,  something  like  ;^ioo  a  Aveek  by  the 
republication  in  the  Melbourne  Argus;  the  Sydney 
Morning  Herald ;  another  journal  at  Adelaide,  South 
Australia,  the  Auckland  Herald,  and  the  Calcutta  Eng- 
lishman, of  my  letters  under  the  title  "  The  Land  of 
the  Golden  Fleece,"  for  which  I  was  receiving  another 
;^20  a  week  from  the  Daily  Telegraph.  I  got  four  per 
cent,  for  my  money  on  deposit  in  the  Commercial 
Bank  of  Australia,  and,  in  fact,  by  the  end  of  the  year 
I  had  realised  a  competence  —  which,  for  a  literary 
man,  might  be  considered  handsome — for  my  old  age ; 
but  within  a  year  of  m}^  return  to  England  I  lost  all 
my  laboriously  acquired  shekels  in  one  great  crash. 

I  had  my  ups  and  my  downs  during  my  lecturing 
tour  on  the  Australian  continent ;  journeying,  as  my 
wife  and  I  did,  into  the  remotest  "  back-blocks  "  of  the 
Bush.  In  some  towns  our  success  was  magnificent,  in 
others  the  takings  did  not  exceed  ;^io.  At  Adelaide, 
at  Brisbane  in  Queensland,  and  indeed  throughout  the 


TO   THE   ANTIPODES  345 

last-named  colony,  the  money  rolled  in  gloriously.  At 
one  township  wiiere  there  was  a  rather  handsome  thea- 
tre, I  peeped — as  lecturers  as  well  as  managers  will  do 
— through  the  usual  orifice  in  the  drop-curtain  to  see 
what  kind  of  a  house  there  was;  but  to  my  dismay  the 
pit — there  Avere  no  stalls — was  tenanted  only  by  three 
men  and  a  boy.  It  was  a  ca-se,  I  thought,  of  Hull  and 
Lieutenant  Gale's  lecture  on  "  Aerostation "  over 
again.  But  the  case  was  pleasantly  altered  when  the 
curtain  rose.  The  most  expensive  seats  in  the  house 
were  in  the  dress  circle,  which  had  been  invisible  to 
me  through  the  hole  in  the  curtain ;  and  I  found  the 
boxes  crowded  w' ith  the  "  quality  "  of  the  place — mag- 
istrates, clergymen,  and  wealthy  squatters.  We  had 
hot  roast  fowl  for  supper  that  night. 

Great  iinailcial  success  was  also  our  lot  at  Wagga- 
Wagga,  a  really  pretty  town,  with  the  name  of  which 
all  those  who  remember  the  Tichborne  ti'ial  will  be  fa- 
miliar. The  Assizes  w^ere  on  when  we  arrived  ;  and 
by  good  luck  the  Crown  Prosecutor  turned  out  to  be 
an  old  friend  of  mine.  I  had  a  capital  house  on  that 
and  the  succeeding  night — the  Judge  came,  the  bar 
and  the  solicitors  mustered  in  full  force  ;  the  prosecu- 
tors and  the  witnesses  were  all  to  the  fore  ;  and  I  could 
almost  have  believed  that  the  prisoners,  escorted  by 
friendly  warders,  were  likewise  present.  It  was  at  a 
place  called  Mudgee  that  I  underwent  one  of  the  most 
serious  snubs  that  I  ever  experienced,  although  I  must 
admit  that  I  have  not  unfrequently,  while  making  a 
speech,  been  more  or  less  "  shut  up  "  by  an  unsympa- 
thetic audience.  Once,  taking  the  chair  at  the  Hol- 
born  Town  Hall,  in  advocacy  of  a  movement  for  es- 
tablishing a  tram-car  system  in  the  parish  of  St.  Pan- 
eras,  I  began  my  address  with — "  Ladies  and  gentle- 
men.    When    I    was   last   in    the    United    States " 

whereupon   a   gentleman    in    the   gallery  cried    out : 


346  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

"  Why  the  devil  didn't  you  stop  there  ?  "  This  was 
not  very  encouraging,  but  my  rebuff  at  Mudgee  was 
much  more  mortifying.  It  came  ^rom  the  lady  who, 
as  I  have  elsewhere  related,  exclaimed  "  Rubbidge  ! " 
when  I  had  come  to  the  end  of  what  I  thouo:ht  was  a 
pathetic  and  picturesque  description  of  the  appearance 
of  Her  Majesty  Queen  Victoria  at  her  Coronation  in 
June,  1838. 

It  was  at  Brisbane,  in  Queensland,  that  I  found 
Miss  Genevieve  Ward,  whose  dramatic  tour,  in  com- 
pany with  that  excellent  actor  Mr.  Vernon,  had  been 
one  uninterrupted  triumph.  She  made,  I  apprehend, 
as  much  if  not  more  money  than  I  did  ;  and  she  had 
the  sense,  1  hope  and  believe,  to  keep  her  winnings. 
We  afterwards  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  her  both 
in  Melbourne  and  Sydney.  Of  the  many  score  of 
places,  many  of  them  with  wholly  unpronounceable 
native  names,  I  took  careful  count  in  a  ledger  which  I 
kept,  but  which  I  have  mislaid.  I  know,  however, 
that  in  the  autumn,  under  the  auspices  of  "  Little 
Smythe,"  I  went  to  New  Zealand,  and  lectured  with 
bright  success  at  Auckland,  Wellington,  Christchurch, 
Dunedin,  Invercargill,  and  other  places.  ,At  Welling- 
ton, the  capital  of  the  colony,  I  had  the  advantage  of 
meeting  the  Governor,  Sir  William  Jarvis,  whom  I 
had  not  seen  since  the  old  Canadian  days  in  1864. 
Moreover,  I  received  from  an  unknown  source  ;i^ioo 
as  an  honorarium  for  visitinof  the  wonderful  Hot 
Lakes  district  and  formally  opening  some  of  the 
baths.  I  saw  the  marvellous  Pink  and  White  Ter- 
races, since  utterly  annihilated  by  a  succession  of 
dreadful  earthquakes. 

Returning  from  New  Zealand  early  in  December,  I 
lectured  four  or  five  times,  but  with  indifferent  suc- 
cess, at  Hobart  and  other  towns  in  the  beautiful  and 
hospitable   island  of    Tasmania  —  the    sanatorium,  the 


TO   THE   ANTIPODES  347 

Isle  of  Wight  of  Australia.  In  the  third  week  of  De- 
cember my  wife  left  me  to  go  to  Melbourne  to  pack 
up  our  things  with  the  intent  of  departing  for  India  ; 
and  three  days  after  she  left  I  crossed  to  Sydney  to 
draw  out  some  money  from  a  banking-house  there.  I 
spent  my  Christmas  Day  at  sea,  not  very  convivially  ; 
there  was  no  roast  beef  and  there  was  no  plum  pud- 
ding, and  I  dined  on  boiled  mutton  and  turnips,  and  a 
pint  of  Bass's  pale  ale.  At  Sydney  I  left  my  card 
with  Lord  Carrington,  the  newly  arrived  Governor, 
who  at  once  sent  down  a  trooper  to  the  hotel  where  I 
was  staving  and  asked  me  to  dinner  that  same  even- 
ing.  At  the  end  of  the  repast  His  Excellency,  after 
proposing  the  Queen's  health,  told  me  that  that  was 
the  only  toast  usually  drunk  at  Government  House  ; 
but  that  he  meant  to  drink  the  health  of  my  wife, 
which  he  did.  We  walked  afterwards  in  the  garden, 
and  gazed  at  the  blue  velvet  sky — not  Melaina  astro)i 
("  black  with  stars  "),  as  the  Greek  playwright  some- 
what paradoxically  puts  it  in  Electra — but  studded  al- 
most overwhelmingly  with  the  dazzling  luminaries  of 
the  Southern  Cross.  "  What  a  beautiful  country  !  " 
exclaimed  Lord  Carrington,  "  and  what  a  happy  time 
you  must  have  had."  Yes ;  I  had  had,  all  things  con- 
sidered, a  happy  and  most  prosperous  time. 

Next  evening,  having  settled  all  my  money  matters, 
I  took  the  train  ;  and  on  the  platform  at  Melbourne  I 
found,  not  my  wife,  but  Mr.  Smythe,  who  told  me 
that  my  dear  partner  had  caught  a  chill  at  sea  in 
Bass's  Straits  ;  that  she  was  lying  dangerously  ill  at 
Menzies'  Hotel,  where  a  consultation  of  three  physi- 
cians had  just  been  held.  It  was  New  Year's  Eve  ; 
the  weather  was  ferociously  hot,  with  a  hotter  wind, 
and  a  "  brickfielder,"  or  dust-storm,  blowing  through 
Melbourne's  broad  streets.  I  found  my  wife  inarticu- 
late in  the  agonies  of  peritonitis  ;  she  only  spoke  once, 


348  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

when,  pressing  my  hand,  she  said,  "  Go  to  India,  dear, 
and  complete  your  education."  That  night  she  died. 
At  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day  I  had 
to  bury  her.  I  had  no  mourning  attire  ;  and  I  was 
oblisred  to  borrow  different  articles  of  sable  dress  from 
different  friends.  Everybody  was  pitiful  and  kind  to 
me.  The  Governors  of  every  one  of  the  Australasian 
Colonies  sent  me  condoling  telegrams  ;  and  similar 
missives  reached  me  from  Lord  Rosebery  and  from 
Henr}^  Irving.  The  Bishop  of  Melbourne,  now  Bishop 
of  Manchester,  wrote  me  a  touching  letter.  The  Ven- 
erable Archdeacon  of  Melbourne,  then  nearly  eighty 
years  of  age,  and  who  died  only  a  few  days  ago,  came 
and  prayed  with  me.  Genevieve  Ward  was  away  ; 
Mrs.  Menzies  and  her  daughter  were  touchingly  kind 
to  me,  but  I  fancy  that  during  a  full  fortnight  I  was 
more  or  less  off  my  head. 


CHAPTER  LXI 

HOME   AGAIN — LAST   WORDS 

The  Chairman  of  the  Peninsular  and  Oriental  Steam 
Navigation  Company,  so  soon  as  the  news  of  my  sad 
bereavement  had  been  cabled  to  London,  telegraphed 
to  Melbourne  to  the  Company's  agent  there,  instruct- 
ing him  to  give  me,  if  I  wished  to  visit  India,  a  free 
passage  to  Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay,  and  back 
to  England.  When  I  was  well  enough  to  travel,  1 
boarded  one  of  the  magnificent  P.  and  O.  steamers  at 
Williamstown  ;  and  three  weeks  later,  after  a  brief  stay 
at  Colombo  and  Kandy,  in  the  enchanting  island  of 
Ceylon,  I  arrived  at  Calcutta.  Lord  Dufferin  was 
away,  in  Burmah ;  but  he  had  telegraphed  to  Calcutta 
to  say  that  I  was  to  be  asked  to  the  Vice-regal  coun- 
try residence  at  Barrackpore,  and  on  his  return  to  the 
City  of  Palaces  he  showed  me  all  his  usual  goodness. 
Sir  W.  W.  Hunter,  a  Member  of  Council,  too,  to  whom 
I  had  been  recommended  by  Genevieve  Ward,  "  put 
me  up  "  at  a  house  which  he  had  rented  somewhere 
on  the  Hugli.  We  crossed  the  river  one  night  to  wit- 
ness some  religious  ceremony  at  a  Hindoo  temple.  I 
caught  a  chill  on  the  water,  and  two  days  afterwards, 
at  a  hotel  in  Calcutta,  I  awoke  with  a  high  fever. 

When  I  grew  apparently  convalescent  I  was  again 
"  put  up,"  or  entertained,  at  the  house  of  Mr.  J.  O.  B. 
Saunders,  the  proprietor  of  the  Calcutta.  En£^/is/iman  ; 
and  when,  after  a  few  weeks'  stay  under  his  hospitable 
roof,  I  began  to  feel  quite  well  and  strong,  1  shipped 
myself  on  board  the   P.  and  O.  steamer  Ballarat,  and 


350  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

returned  home  by  way  of  Colombo — ^where  I  met  Sir 
Edwin  Arnold,  who  was  revisiting  India — Madras, 
Aden,  the  Red  Sea,  the  Suez  Canal,  and  Marseilles.  I 
reached  London  just  in  time  for  the  Queen's  Jubilee, 
and  of  the  ceremonial  in  the  Abbey  I  wrote  a  long 
account  in  the  Daily  Telegraph.  I  had  not,  however, 
been  more  than  three  weeks  in  Mecklenburgh  Square 
when  the  fever,  or  rather  the  fag-end  of  it,  came  back 
to  me,  and  I  believe  that  the  malady  is  in  my  bones 
still.     I  was  more  or  less  an  invalid  for  nearly  a  year. 

I  may  here  be  allowed  to  say  something  about  one 
of  the  last  public  transactions  in  which  I  have  been 
concerned.  In  February,  1889,  I  was  the  occupant  of 
a  flat  in  Victoria  Street,  Westminster,  and  one  Satur- 
day, between  one  and  two  p.m.,  a  knock  came  at  my 
study-door,  and  1  was  handed  a  letter  which  had  been 
brought  in  hot  haste  by  a  servant  who  was  instructed 
to  wait  for  an  answer.  The  missive  was  of  the  briefest 
possible  kind,  and  was  from  my  near  neighbour  Mr. 
Henry  Labouchere,  M.P.,  whose  house  was  then  at  24, 
Grosvenor  Gardens,  and  the  note  ran  thus  :  "Can  you 
leave  everything,  and  come  here  at  once  ?  Most  im- 
portant business. — H.  L."  I  told  the  servant  that  I 
would  be  in  Grosvenor  Gardens  within  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  and,  ere  that  time  had  expired,  I  was  ushered 
into  a  large  library  on  the  ground  floor,  where  I  found 
the  Senior  Member  for  Northampton  smoking  his 
sempiternal  cigarette,  but  with  an  unusual  and  curi- 
ous expression  of  animation  in  his  normally  impassive 
countenance. 

He  was  not  alone.  Ensconced  in  a  roomv  fauteuil  a 
few  paces  from  Mr.  Labouchere's  writing-table  there 
was  a  somewhat  burly  individual  of  middle  stature  and 
of  more  than  middle  age.  He  looked  fully  sixty  ;  al- 
though I  have  been  given  to  understand  that  his  age 
did  not  exceed  fifty-five  ;  but  his  elderly   aspect  was 


HOME   AGAIN — LAST  WORDS  35  I 


enhanced  by  his  baldness,  which  revealed  a  large 
amount  of  oval  os  front  is  fringed  by  grey  locks.  The 
individual  had  an  eye-glass  screwed  into  one  eye,  and 
he  was  using  this  optical  aid  most  assiduously,  for  he 
was  poring  over  a  copy  of  that  morning's  issue  of  the 
Times,  going  right  down  one  column  and  apparently 
up  it  again  ;  then  taking  column  after  column  in  suc- 
cession ;  then  harking  back  as  though  he  had  omitted 
some  choice  paragraph  ;  and  then  resuming  the  se- 
quence of  his  lecture,  ever  and  anon  tapping  that  ovoid 
frontal  bone  of  his,  as  though  to  evoke  memories  of  the 
past,  with  a  little  silver  pencil-case.  I  noticed  his 
somewhat  shabby-genteel  attire ;  and  in  particular  I 
observed  that  the  hand  which  held  the  copy  of  the 
Times  never  ceased  to  shake.  Mr.  Labouchere,  in  his 
most  courteous  manner  and  his  blandest  tone  said, 
"  Allow  me  to  introduce  3'^ou  to  a  gentleman  of  whom 
you  must  have  heard  a  great  deal,  Mr. ."  I  re- 
plied, "  There  is  not  the  slightest  necessity  for  naming 
him.     I  know  him  well  enough.     That's  Mr.  Pigott." 

The  individual  in  the  capacious  fauteuil   wriggled 
from  behind  the  Tiincs  an  uneasy  acknowledgment  of 
my  recognition  ;   but,  if  anything  could  be  conducive 
to   putting  completely  at  his  ease  a  gentleman  who, 
from  some  cause  or  another,  was  troubled  in  his  mind, 
it  would   have   been  the    dulcet  voice    in  which   Mr. 
Labouchere  continued  :"  The  fact  is  that  Mr.   Pigott 
has  come  here,  quite  unsolicited,  to  make  a  full  confes- 
sion.    I  told  him  that  I    would   listen   to  nothing  that 
he  had  to  say  save  in  the  presence   of  a  witness,  and 
remembering  that  you   lived  close  by,  I  thought  that 
you  would  not  mind  coming  here  and  listening  to  what 
Mr.  Pigott  has  to  confess,  which  will  be  taken  down, 
word  by  word,  from   his  dictation  in  writing."      it   lias 
been  my  lot,  during   a  long  and   diversified  career,  to 
have  to  listen  to  a  large  number  of  very  queer  state- 


352  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

ments  from  very  queer  people  ;  and,  by  dint  of  experi- 
ence, you  reach  at  last  a  stage  of  stoicism  when  little, 
if  anything,  that  is  imparted  to  you  excites  surprise, 
Mr.  Pigott,  although  he  had  screwed  his  courage  to 
the  sticking-place  of  saying  that  he  was  going  to  con- 
fess, manifested  considerable  tardiness  in  orally  "  own- 
ing up."  Conscience,  we  were  justified  in  assuming, 
had  "  ofnawed  "  to  an  extent  sufficient  to  make  him 
willing  to  relieve  his  soul  from  a  dreadful  burden ;  but 
conscience,  to  all  seeming,  had  to  gnaw  a  little  longer 
and  a  little  more  sharply  ere  he  absolutely  gave 
tonofue.  So  we  let  him  be  for  about  ten  minutes.  Mr. 
Labouchere  kindled  another  cigarette.  I  lighted  a 
cigar. 

At  length  Mr.  Pigott  stood  up  and  came  forward 
into  the  light  by  the  side  of  Mr.  Labouchere's  writing- 
table.  He  did  not  change  colour;  he  did  not  blench  ; 
but  when — out  of  the  fulness  of  his  heart,  no  doubt — 
his  mouth  spake,  it  was  in  a  low,  half-musing  tone, 
more  at  first  as  though  he  were  talking  to  himself  than 
to  any  auditors.  By  degrees,  however,  his  voice  rose, 
his  diction  became  more  fluent.  It  is  only  necessary 
that  in  this  place  I  should  say  in  substance  that  Pigott 
confessed  that  he  had  forged  the  letters  alleged  to 
have  been  written  by  Mr.  Parnell ;  and  he  minutely 
described  the  manner  in  which  he,  and  he  alone,  had 
executed  the  forgeries  in  question.  Whether  the  man 
with  the  bald  head  and  the  eye-glass  in  the  library  at 
Grosvenor  Gardens  was  telling  the  truth  or  uttering 
another  batch  of  infernal  lies  it  is  not  for  me  to  de- 
termine. No  pressure  was  put  upon  him  ;  no  leading 
questions  were  asked  him  ;  and  he  went  on  quietly 
and  continuously  to  the  end  of  a  story  which  I  should 
have  thought  amazing  had  I  not  had  occasion  to  hear 
many  more  tales  even  more  astounding.  He  was  not 
voluble,  but  he  was  collected,  clear,  and  cohei-ent ;  nor, 


HOME  AGAIN — LAST   WORDS  353 

although  he  repeatedly  confessed  to  forgery,  fraud, 
deception,  and  misrepresentation,  did  he  seem  over- 
come with  anything  approaching  active  shame.  His 
little  peccadilloes  were  plainly  owned,  but  he  appeared 
to  treat  them  more  as  incidental  weaknesses  than  as 
extraordinary  acts  of  wickedness. 

When  he  had  come  to  the  end  of  his  statement  Mr. 
Labouchere  left  the  library  for  a  few  minutes  to  ob- 
tain a  little  refreshment.  It  was  a  great  relief  to  me 
that  Pigott  did  not  confess  anything  to  me  when  we 
were  left  together.  There  came  over  me  a  vague 
dread  that  he  might  confess  his  complicity  with  the 
Rye  House  Plot,  or  that  he  would  admit  that  he  had 
been  the  executioner  of  King  Charles  I.  The  situation 
was  rather  embarrassing ;  the  time  might  have  been 
tided  over  by  whistling,  but  unfortunately  I  never 
learnt  to  w^histle.  It  would  have  been  rude  to  read  a 
book  ;  and,  besides,  to  do  so  would  have  necessitated 
my  taking  my  eyes  off  Mr.  Pigott,  and  I  never  took 
them  off  him.  We  did  get  into  conversation,  but  our 
talk  was  curt  and  trite.  He  remarked,  first  taking  up 
that  so-often-conned  Times,  that  the  London  papers 
were  inconveniently  large.  This  being  a  self-evident 
proposition,  met  with  no  response  from  me ;  but  on 
his  proceeding  to  say,  in  quite  a  friendly  manner,  that 
I  must  have  found  the  afternoon's  interview  rather 
stupid  work,  I  replied  that,  on  the  contrary,  so  far  as  I 
was  concerned,  I  had  found  it  equally  amusing  and  in- 
structive. Then,  the  frugal  Mr.  Labouchere  coming 
back  with  his  mouthful,  we  went  to  business  again. 
The  whole  of  Pisfott's  confession,  beginning  with  the 
declaration  that  he  had  made  it  uninvited  and  without 
any  pecuniary  consideration,  was  read  over  to  him 
line  by  line  and  word  by  word.  He  made  no  correc- 
tion or  alteration  whatsoever.  The  confession  covered 
several  sheets  of  paper,  and  to  each  sheet  he  affixed 
n.— 23 


354  LIFE   OF   GEORGE   AUGUSTUS   SALA 

his  initials.  Finally,  at  the  bottom  of  the  completed 
document  he  signed  his  name,  beneath  which  I  wrote 
my  name  as  a  witness. 

One  day,  not  very  long  after  my  return  from  India, 
and  while  I  was  miserably  ill,  there  came  to  visit  me  a 
tall,  comely  lady,  who  brought  me  a  letter  from  dear 
old  Antonio  Gallenga.  She  sought  my  assistance  in 
some  matter  of  lady  journalism.  Eventually  she  be- 
came my  faithful  and  efficient  secretary.  I  mourned 
my  dear  lost  Harriet  for  four  dismal  years.  But  time 
was  good  to  me.  I  thought  it  wicked  and  ungrateful 
to  Providence  to  continue  to  dwell  in  sulky  solitude, 
eating  my  own  heart  when  I  had  the  means  of  making 
another  person  happy  ;  and  four  years  ago  I  was 
married  at  St.  Margaret's  Church,  Westminster,  to 
Bessie,  the  third  daughter  of  the  late  Robert  Stan- 
nard,  C.E.,  the  tall  and  handsome  lady  whom  Antonio 
Gallenga  had  sent  to  me. 


THE   END. 


INDEX 


A'Beckett,  Gilbert  Abbot,  burlesque 
on  "The  Light  of  Other  Days  has 
Faded,"  i.  49;  his  A^ncs  Sorel,  54  ;  at 
a  theatrical  performance  at  Charles 
Dickens's  house,  92  ;  a  frequenter 
of  the  St.  James's  green-room,  92  ; 
shyness  and  wit,  92,  93;  "stock- 
author  "  at  the  St.  James's,  93 ;  as 
magistrate  and  journalist,  94  ;  death, 
94  ;  his  periodicals,  94 ;  humour- 
ous leaders  in  the  Times,  328 

Abdul  Aziz,  Sultan,  his  visit  to  Paris, 
ii.  114-117  ;  deposition,  271 

Abercorn,  Duke  and  Duchess  of,  i. 
213 

Abinger,  Lord,  ii.  27 

About,  Edmund,  ii.  109 

-Ackermann,  Messrs.,  i.  214,  234,  238, 
249,  252,  259 

Actors  and  cast-off  court  dresses,  i.  91 

Adelaide,  author's  lecturing  visit  to, 
ii-  344 

Adelphi  Theatre,  and  Wright  the 
comedian,  i.  129 

Affondatore,  foundering  of  the,  ii.  82 

Ainsworth,  Harrison,  at  Gore  House, 
i.  45,  46;  his  "Rookwood"  and 
"  Jack  Sheppard,"  86,  87 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  a  gambling,  advent- 
ure at,  i.  230,  231 

Albany,  Duke  of,  and  the  "Gentle 
Life,"  ii.  198 

Aldridge,  Ira,  negro  tragedian,  i.  189 

Alemann,  Baron,  Austrian  Governor- 
General  of  Venice,  ii.  92 

Alexander  II.,  Tsar,  attempt  on  his 
life  in  Paris,  ii.  117,  118;  at  the 
Guildhall,  215  ;  assassination,  316  et 
seq. 
Alexander  II I., Tsar,  his  coronation,  ii. 
325  et  seq. 


Alfonso,  King,  ii.  154,  224,  225  ;  en- 
trance into  Madrid,  229,  230 ;  in- 
cident on  leaving  Madrid,  231,  232 

Algiers,  ii.  39-43,  244 

Alison,  Miss,  actress,  afterwards  wife 
of  Captain  Seymour,  i.  95 

Aiken,  Henry,  i.  259 

All  the  Year  Round,  i.  318 

Allen,  — ,  tenor  at  the  Princess's  Thea- 
tre, i.  129 

Alma-Tadema,  Mr.,  ii.  305 

Alva,  Duke  of,  ii.  48 

"America  Revisited,"  ii.  336  et  seq. 

American  War,  ii.  18  et  seq. 

Anderson.  Mr.  James,  as  Mark  An- 
tony, i.  138 

Anecdotes  :  A  "  fairy  godmother,"  i. 
7,  8  ;  Sir  Edward   Lawson,  and  the 
author's  "rummy"  eye,   15;    Ma- 
dame A.   J.   J.    Sala  and    Madame 
Vestris,  22  ;  Malibran  and  Madame 
A.  J.  J.   Sala,  27,  28;  Paganini,  28- 
30  ;  the   Waterloo  hero  at  Cricklc- 
wood,  33,  34  ;  Duke   of  Wellington 
and  Madame  A.  J.  J.  Sala,   38-40  ; 
Donizetti  in  the  inaison  de  sa?!fe\  41  ; 
Sultan  Mahmoud   and  his   musical 
tastes,  42, 43  ;  Berlioz  and  the  fugue, 
43,   note;    Cherubini  and   the   ugly 
applicant    for  an   engagement,  43, 
note;  Countess  Blessington,  Harri- 
son Ainsworth,  and  Count  D'Orsay, 
45  ;  "  Vive  le  Raw,"  49  ;  author  re- 
hearsing at  Princess's  Theatre,  57  ; 
widow  of  Morris    Barnett,  57  ;  Mrs. 
Stirling  and  the  author,  64  ;  Charles 
Dickens  and  the  dramatic   version 
of  "  Oliver  Twist,"  64  ;  the  ex-bar- 
maid of  the  Colosseum,  71,  72  ;  the 
invalid  and  "  Pickwick,'  74  ;  "  Pick- 
wick "  and  the  schoolboy  in  church, 


356 


INDEX 


74;  "going  to  the  dogs  "  and  re- 
turning thence,  93;  Sir  Wilham 
Gregory  and  the  study  of  Greek, 
loi  ;  the  Duke  of  Orleans  and  the 
price  of  a  ringlet,  iii  ;  Henry  Wal- 
lack  and  his  grammatical  slip,  115  ; 
Mr.  Weiss  and  his  "shape,"  128; 
the  cook  and  the  manuscript  of 
"  The  Bride  of  Castelnuovo,"  152, 
153  ;  Macready  and  Charles  Kerri- 
son  Sala,  153-157;  Macready  and 
the  performance  of  Philip  von  Arte- 
velde,  158  ;  Macready  and  Maddox, 
158  ;  Charles  Matthews  and  the  un- 
paid seven-and-sixpence,  158,  159  ; 
Macready  and  Hemming  at  the 
Haymarket  Theatre,  167,  168  ;  Ma- 
dame Grisi  singing  a  verse  of  the 
National  Anthem,  184;  derivation 
of  the  name  "  Spencer,"  191  ;  T.  L. 
Holt  and  his  thousand  sovereigns, 
200  ;  Frederic  Soulie  and  the  foot- 
bath of  gold,  200;  France  afflicted 
with  the  "measles,"  211;  the  old 
lady  of  New  Brighton,  235-237  ; 
Brougham  leaving  his  home,  236 ; 
Brougham  and  his  "  crackit  "  head, 
236;  Hartley  Coleridge  and  "lily- 
white  muffins,"  236,  237  ;  the  Hull 
confectioner,  240,  241  ;  the  author 
and  Jullien,  283,  284  ;  the  Canter- 
bury Pilgrim  and  the  case  of  bran- 
dy, 288  ;  the  female  soldier  in  the 
French  army,  296  ;  Prince  Bismarck 
and  the  Russian  character,  302  ;  the 
bill-sticker  before  the  magistrate, 
321,  322;  dinner-party  at  Edmund 
Yates's,  328,  329  ;  prejudice  against 
representatives  of  "  penny  papers," 
332;  Edmund  Yates's  and  Hogarth's 
works,  354,  355  ;  incident  at  Leeds 
in  a  litigation  case,  365  ;  Mr.  Jeho- 
saphat's  "nevvy,"338;  Thackeray 
and  Higgins  at  the  Egyptian  Hall, 
372,  373  ;  James  Grant  at  the  "  Wav- 
erley  Arms,"  ii.  13,  14  ;  a  Montreal 
dinner  and  the  song  of  "  Maryland," 
26;  the  negro  electors  and  ^' ad 
valorem^'  28,  29  ;  "  Raised  on  Picca- 


dilly," 30  ;  Captain  Jenkins  and  the 
fogs  off  Newfoundland,  32 ;  Miss 
Nightingale  and  the  swearing  sol- 
dier, 35  ;  Colonel  Bateman  and  his 
hair,  37;  "Cordelia"  fishing  from 
the  barge,  38  ;  the  two  Virginians 
and  the  saloon-keeper,  38,  39  ;  W. 
H.  Russell  and  the  assassination  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  39  ;  the  Algerian 
slave-dealer  and  the  opera-singer, 
42,  43  ;  the  traveller  in  Spain  and 
the  loaf  of  bread,  56,  57  ;  the  rat  and 
the  crab,  62,  63  ;  an  officer  of  Gari- 
baldi's and  the  author,  70,  71  ;  Gari- 
baldi and  his  General's  uniform,  73  ; 
Dr.  Maginn's  definition  of  a  gentle- 
man for  duelling  purposes,  75  ;  the 
special  correspondent  and  the  wav- 
ering Garibaldian  troops,  77  ;  Gari- 
baldi at  Stafford  House,  79  ;  Mrs. 
Chambers  and  Madame  Mario  tend- 
ing wounded  Garibaldian  soldiers, 
80 ;  Lord  Castlereagh  and  Peter 
Finnerty,  84 ;  M.  Plantulli  in  the 
palace  of  King  Bomba,  85  ;  Marshal 
Haynan  and  the  Caffe  Florian,  86 ; 
the  four-in-hand  at  Mestre,  91  ;  the 
four  English  Grenadiers  at  Niagara, 
91,  92  ;  assassination  of  Era  Paolo, 
94  ;  the  English  lady  and  the  legend 
of  Beatrice  Cenci,  104 ;  the  Paris 
sentinel  and  the  author,  119  ;  the 
two  actor-managers  and  the  rare 
cognac,  127-129;  Mr.  H.  Labou- 
chere  and  Watts  Phillips,  148,  149  ; 
a  mixed  telegram  on  the  eve  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  war,  156  ;  the  "  out- 
door "  charwoman  in  Paris  and  the 
colonel,  157  ;  the  French  colonel  in 
the  hotel  at  Metz,  159  ;  the  German 
tailor  in  Paris,  169  ;  modes  adopted 
by  Confederates  to  show  animosity 
towards  Federals,  189,  190 ;  Mr. 
Labouchere  and  the  "  Claimant," 
207,  208  ;  Don  Juan  de  Borbon  and 
the  parlour-maid,  222,  223;  "Col- 
onel Howsomnever  "  and  his  stories, 
226-228  ;  George  IV.  and  the  pro- 
posed place  of  imprisonment  of  Na- 


INDEX 


357 


poleon  I.,  227  ;  a  game  of  "  simili- 
tudes "  at  Pope's  Villa,  231  ;  Antonio 
Gallenga  and  the  author,  230,  231  ; 
King  Alfonso  and  the  beggar,  232, 
233 ;  at  a  dinner-party  with  soiled 
hands,  236  ;  washing  with  waxen 
candles,  236,  237  ;  the  author  and 
the  Spanish  child  at  the  table  de 
hote,  241,  242;  the  author  and  his 
interpreter  in  Russia,  256,  258,  264- 
266  ;  Byzantine  mosaics  and  jujubes, 
270,  271  ;  the  poodle  and  the  pariah 
dogs  at  Constantinople,  271,  272 ; 
dogs  of  Eyoub  and  the  two  English- 
men, 273,  274 ;  the  American  stu- 
dent at  Constantinople  and  the 
"sophisticated  tobacco,"  275-277; 
constructing  a  political  telegram  at 
Constantinople,  283,  284  ;  a  beggar 
at  a  pasha's  luncheon,  288  ;  religious 
toleration  at  Constantinople,  289, 
290  ;  the  lawsuit  and  the  deaf  judge, 
293;  twin  brothers,  293  ;  "Captain 
Cashless  "  and  the  author,  295,  296  ; 
the  Irish  journalist  and  the  author's 
sympathy  for  the  Confederates,  309  ; 
the  author's  description  of  the  cor- 
onation of  Alexander  III.,  and  a 
smart  device  of  a  Russian  journalist, 
332  ;  incident  at  the  Holborn  Town 
Hall,  345. 

Anglesey,  Marquis  of,  and  the  last  shot 
fired  at  Waterloo,  i.  12,  136 

Angling  in  the  Upper  Thames,  i.  219, 
220 

Anstie,  Dr.,  ii.  213,  214 

Antonelli,  Cardinal,  ii.  191 

Aosta,  Duke  of,  ii.  224,  281 

Arab  troupe  of  acrobats  at  the  Colos- 
seum, i.  69-71 

Arago,  M.  Emmanuel,  defends  Bere- 
zowski  for  his  attempt  on  the  Tzar's 
life,  ii.  118 

Arctic  expedition  by  balloon,  projected 
by  Lieutenant  Gale,  i.  238-240 

Army;  purchase  system,  ii.  153;  edu- 
cation of  officers,   153,154 

Arne,  Dr.,  his  Artaxerxrs,  i.  59 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,   commences  writ- 


ing for  the  Daily    Telegraph,   ii.  5, 

350 
Arnold,  Matthew,  ii.  5,  79 
Arthur,  Mr.  Chester,  ii.  337 
Arthur,  Sir  George,  i.  146 
Ashbury,  Mr.  James,  ii.  50 
Athens ;    the   new   town,   ii.   291  ;    the 

Acropolis,  292 
Athole,  Duke  of,  ii.  27 
Auckland,  ii.  342 
Austin,  Mr.  Alfred,  as  a  poet,  ii.  3,  5  ; 

author's  first  meeting  with  him,  3,  4 
Austin,  Mr.  Charles,  i.  359,  360 
.Austin,  Mr.  Ware,  i.  360 
Austin,  Wiltshire  Staunton,  and  Ttni- 

fle  Bar,  i.  359,  360 
"Australian    Nights'    Entertainment, 

The,"  i.  188 
Austria;  war  with  Italy,  ii.  66  82 
Authorship,  Coleridge  on,  i. 
Aylmer,  Lord,  ii.  30 

"  Baddington  Peerage,  The,"  i.  313 

Bagshaw,  Dr.,  ii.  214 

Baker,  Pasha,  ii.  278 

Balfe,  Michael  William  ;  criticisms  of 
his  Maid  of  Artois,  i.  48  ;  in  the 
Siege  of  Rochellc,  49  ;  lesseeship  of 
the  Lyceum,  123  ;  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, 123,  124 

Ballet  girls  of  1843,  i.  142 

Balloon  ;  Lieutenant  Gale's  project  for 
searching  for  Sir  John  Franklin,  i. 
238-242  ;  accident  to  the  author,  246, 
247  ;  the  "  Nassau,"  125,  247 

Barbary,  A  trip  to,  ii.  36,  39-43 

Barere,  M.,  ii.  282 

Baretti's  trial  for  murder,  i.  336 

Barker,  George,  i.  58 

Barnett,  Benjamin,  i.  56 

Barnett,  Morris,  i.  54-57 

"  Basket-weaving  Poet,  The,"  i.  188 

Bateman,  Colonel,  ii.  37,  38 

Bateman,  Miss  Kate,  in  Leah,  ii.  y] 

Bathe,  Sir  Henry  de,  i.  164 

"  Batouk,  Azamat,"  ii.  162 

Bayard,  Senator,  ii.  383,  337 

Baylis,  Harry,  i.  168 

Bayly,  Haynes,  i.  47 


358 


INDEX 


Heaconsfield,  Lord,  at  "  Soyer's  Sym- 
posium," i.  244  ;  kindness  to  men  of 
letters,  ii.  247  ;  introduces  himself 
to  author,  304 

Beatrice  Cenci  ;  Guido's  portrait,  and 
legend,  ii.  103,  104 ;  author's  collec- 
tion of  portraits,  104 

I'.cauregard,  Comtesse  de,  formerly 
Mrs.  Howard,  i.  153 

Beefsteak  Club,  i.  146 ;  ii.  319 

Bell,  Mr.,  aeronaut,  accident  to  his 
balloon,  i.  246,  247 

Bellew,  Rev.  J.  M.  C,  ii.  7.  8 

Bellini,  his  funeral,  i.  43,  44  ;  attrac- 
tive appearance,  44 

Belt  libel  case,  i.  135 

Benazet,  M. ,  and  the  Salon  Frascati, 
i.  109 

Benedetti,  Count,  ii.  156 

Benedict,  Sir  Julius,  i.  317 

Bennett,  Charles  H.,  his  artistic  works, 
i.  271 ;  early  difficulties,  272 

Bennett,  Mr.  George,  as  Henry  VIII., 
i.  190 

Bentley' s  Miscellany ;  Harrison  Ains- 
worth  follows   Dickens  as  editor,  i. 

87 

Berezowski,  his  attempt  on  the  life  of 
the  Tsar,  ii.  118,  119 

Berlin  ;  opening  of  the  German  Par- 
liament, ii.  202  ;  a  Beer  Symposium 
of  students,  202,  203 ;  fortress  of 
Spandau, 203 

Berlioz,  i.  43,  note 

Bernard,  Dr.  Claude,  trial  at  Old 
Bailey  for  conspiracy  against  Napo- 
leon III.,  i.  351,  352 

Betty,  Mr.  Henry,  i.  191 

Beverly,  William  Ro.xby,  marries  Miss 
Sophie  Burbage,  i.  142 ;  engages 
the  author  as  assistant  scene-painter, 
149 

Bewick,    Thomas,    and   his    pupils,  i. 

17s 

Bibles  in  Rome,  ii.  185 

Bill-sticking,  i.  321,  322 

Hilly  Taylor,  pantomime,  i.  252,  253 

Birket-Foster,  employed  as  a  draughts- 
man, i.  171 


Birmingham,  and  Mr.  Joseph  Gillott, 
i.  240 

Bishop,  Sir  Henry  R. ,  and  the  Marri- 
age of  Figaro^  i.  22 

Bishop,  Mrs.  H.  R.,  i.  29 

Bismarck,  Prince  ;  speech  at  the  open- 
ing  of  the  German   Parliament,   ii. 

2C2 

Bizet,  Sophie,  i.  26 
Black  Sea,  colour  of  water,  ii.  268 
Blessington,  Countess  of,  i.  44  ;  opin- 
ion of  appearance  of  D  Orsay  and 
Ainsworth,45  ;  her  toilette,  45 
Bloomer,  Mrs.  Amelia,  ii.  311 
Bloxam,  Mr.,  ii.  129,  130,  207 
Blunt,    Mr.,    Consul    at   Salonica,    ii. 

279 
Boat  race,  University,  ii.  127,  128 
Bogne,    Mr.     David,    his    connection 

with  the  Illustrated  Times,  i.  269 
Bolton  House  School,  i.  133-141 
Bonaparte,  Pierre,  his  stormy  career, 
ii.    140-142  ;  trial   for   killing  Victor 

Noir,  145-151 

Booth,  Sir  Feli.x,  and  the  expedition 
to  the  North  Pole,  i.  24,  25 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  ii.  39 

Borbon,  Don  Juan  de,  ii.  222,  223 

Boston,  ii.  336 

Boucicault,  Dion,  as  ''stock-author" 
at  the  Princess's,  i.  93,  168,  256 ; 
his  adaptation  of  the  Freres  Corses, 
255  ;  his  Lo7idon.  Assurance,  255, 
256 ;  retentive  memory  and  ap- 
pearance, 256  ;  at  Edmund  Yates's, 

329 
Boufarik,  ii.  42 
Box-keepers   of    theatres,   i.    117 ;    ii. 

186 
Boyle,  Mr.  Frederick,  ii.  143 
Bozomania,  i.  So,  81 
Bradbury,  Mr.  Henry,  i.  318,  319 
Braddon,  Miss,  and  "  Lady  Audley's 

Secret,"  ii.  17,  304 
Brady,  Mr.  Cheyne,  i.  312 
Braham,  Augustus,  i.  62-65 
Braham,  Charles,  i.  63 
Braham,    Miss     Frances    (afterwards 

Countess  Waldegrave),  i.  63,  73 


INDEX 


359 


Braham,  John,  and  St.  James's  Thea-    i 
tre,  i.   53,   58-60,   62-65;     becomes    j 
lessee    of   the    Colosseum,  67 ;  last 
years  and  death,  73 

Braham,  John  Hamilton,  i.  63 

Braham,  Ward,  i.  63 

"  Breakfast  in  Bed,"  ii.  136 

Bright,  John,  and  Dr.  Kenealy,  ii. 
218 

Brighton  :  Old  Steine,  i.  i  ;  Pegge's 
Royal  Hotel,  i ;  burial  place  of 
author's  eldest  sister,  3  ;  apartments 
of  Sir  Wathen  Waller,  11 ;  royal 
kitchen  at  the  Pavilion,  11;  asso- 
ciated with  the  author's  youth,  19- 
30  ;  ball  at  the  Old  Ship  Assembly 
Rooms,  27  ;  Mahomed's  Baths,  168 

Brisbane,  author's  lecturing  visit  to, 
ii-  344 

British  Museum  Reading  Room,  i. 
188 

Brough,  Barnabas,  i.  170 

Brough,  Miss  Fanny,  i.  93,  305 ;  ii. 
21 

Brough,  Mr.  Lionel,  and  the  Savage 
Club,  i.  263 

Brough,  Robert  Barnabas,  i.  93  ;  con- 
tributor to  the  Man  in  the  A/oon, 
170 ;  marriage,  170 ;  joint-author 
with  his  brother  of  burlesques,  170  ; 
on  the  staff  of  the  Jllustratcd  Times, 
269  ;  at  Brussels,  305 

Brough,  William,  i.  93  ;  joint-author 
with  his  brother  of  burlesques,  170, 

327 

Brougham,  Lord,  gives  lessons  to  the 
author  in  public  speaking,  i.  87 

Brooks,  Charles  Shirley,  i.  163  ;  and 
the  Man  in  the  Moon,  163  ;  griev- 
ance against  Punch,  165  ;  relations 
with  Douglas  Jerrold,  165  ;  ii.  245  ; 
early  life  and  marriage,  i.  165,  166  ; 
ii.  246,  247 ;  and  the  Morning 
Chronicle^  i.  327  ;  ii.  245,  246  ;  ii.  221 ; 
as  editor  of  Punch,  246  ;  stories  and 
verse,  246,  247 ;  pension  granted  to 
widow  by  Lord  Beaconsfield,  249 

Brown,  Sir  George,  ii.  31 

Browne,  Hablot  K.  ("  Phiz''),    his   il- 


lustrations to  "Pickwick,"  etc.,  i. 
75  ;  illustrates  "  Baddington  Peer- 
age," etc.,  314 

Browning,  Robert,  ii.  304 

Brunswick,  Duke  Charles  of,  and  the 
Princess's  Theatre,  i.  128,  129 ; 
writes  his  Life,  195,  196 

Brussels,  the  delights  of,  i.  231  ;  ii.  45 

Bucca,  Xina,  i.  2 

Buchanan,  Mr.  Robert,  and  Temple 
Bar,  i.  359     . 

Buckland,  Frank,  ii.  62,  63 

Buckstone,  Mr.  J.  Baldwin,  ii.  127, 
128,  136 

Bullock,  Mr.,  of  the  Daily  News^  ii. 
67 

Bulwer,  Mr.  Henry  (afterwards  Lord 
Dalling),  ii.  226 

Bunn,  Alfred,  i.  176 

Buonarotti,  Michael  Angelo,  incident 
of  his  old  age,  i.  18 

Burbage,  Miss  Sophie,  afterwards 
Mrs.  W.  R.  Beverly,  i.  142 

Burdett-Coutts,  Baroness  ;  and  an  en- 
tertainment at  the  Duchess  of  St. 
Albans',  Brighton,  i.  24 ;  author's 
friendship  with  her,  ii.  303,  335 

Burnaby,  Colonel  Fred,  ii.  279 

Burne-Jones,  Mr.  Edward,  ii.  305 

Burton,  Decimus,  architect  of  the  Col- 
osseum, Regent's  Park,  i.  67 

Butler,  General  Benjamin  Franklin,  ii. 

Byron  Memorial  in  Park  Lane,  i.  130 

Cadiz,  ii.  58,  241 

Caf6  de  I'Europe,   its  proprietor    and 

its  frequenters,  168,  169,  316 
Calthrop,  Claude,  i.  71 
Calvert,  Mr.,  wood   engraver,    i.    173, 

175 

Cambridge,  Duchess  of,  her  remem- 
brance of  Napoleon  I.,  ii.  120,  121 

Cambridge,  Duke  of,  opens  the  ex- 
hibition of  1862,  i.  376 

Campbell,  Thomas,  i.  47 

Canaletto,  his  work  at  the  old  Fcnice 
Theatre,  ii.  92 

Canizzaro,  Duchess  of,  i.  25,  27 


36o 


INDEX 


Canterbury  Pilgrims  and  the  wine 
merchant,  i.  288 

Carlists  attacking  trains,  ii.  238-240 

Carlyle,  Mrs.,  her  facetious  estimate 
of  the  author's  capacities,  i.  313, 
314;  ii.  318 

Carnival  at  Madrid,  ii.  51,  52  ;  at 
Cordova,  58,  59  ;  at  Seville,  59  ;  at 
New  Orleans,  309 

Carr,  Mr.  Comyns,  his  resemblance  to 
Albert  Smith,  i.  164  ;  and  the  Gros- 
venor  Gallery,  ii.  305 

Carrington,  Lord,  as  Lord  Chamber- 
lain, ii.  II,  347 

Carthagena,  ii.  244 

Cassagnac,  M.  Paul  de,  ii.  141 ;  at 
the  trial  of  Pierre  Bonaparte,  149 

Cassel,  ii.  45 

Castlereagh,  Lord,  and  Peter  Fin- 
nerty,  ii.  84 

Chambers,  Mr.,  aeronaut,  i.  247 

Chambers,  Mr.,  banker,  i.  250 

Chambers,  Colonel  and  Mrs.,  friends 
of  Garibaldi,  ii.  67,  73,  86 

Chambers,  Q.C. ,  Mr.  Montague,  ii. 
199,  200 

Chambers,  Robert,  i.  319 

Chambers,  Sir  William,  architect  of 
Somerset  House,  and  the  State  car- 
riage, ii.  125 

Chapter  House,  Westminster,  meeting 
to  advocate  its  restoration,  i.  376 

Charles  of  Brunswick,  Duke,  and  the 
lessee  of  the  Princess's  Theatre,  i. 
128,  129 

Charter  House,  some  of  its  literary 
and  dramatic  inmates,  i.  125,  126 

Chartists  ;  meeting  on  Kennington 
Common,  i.  182,  183  ;  riots  in  the 
provinces,  185 

"  Chasse-iteigex,"  ii.  262 

Chat ;  author's  first  contribution,  and 
appointment  as  editor,  i.  181,  182; 
"The  Australian  Nights'  Enter- 
tainment," 188  ;  author's  salary  as 
editor,  209  ;  author  sells  his  share 
in  the  copyright  and  goodwill,  211 

Chatham,  Lord,  lampooned  in  an  epi- 
gram, ii.  84 


Cheap  Press,  The,  i.  321,  322 

Cherubini  as  director  of  the  Royal 
Conservatoire  of  Music,  and  anec- 
dote, i.  43,  note 

Chesterfield,  Earl  of,  as  special  con- 
stable, i.  183 

Chicago,  ii.  310,  311,  338,  339 

Child's  Bank,  ii.  250 

Childs,  Mr.  G.  W.,  proprietor  of  the 
Public  Ledger,  ii.  308,  337 

Chippendale,  Mr.,  ii.  136 

Cholera  epidemic  of  1832,  i.  8,  9 

Cincinnati,  ii.  311 

Civita  Vecchia  occupied  by  Italian 
troops,  ii.  184 

Clanwilliam,  Lord,  ii.  328 

Clarendon,  Earl  of,  riot  on  the  death 
of  one  of  his  servants,  i.  9 

Clark,  Sir  James,  i.  12,  97 

Clarke,    Mr.    Campbell,   ii.    269,   283, 

293 
Clarke,  Marcus,  i.  187 
Clayton,  Mr.  Benjamin,  i.  228 
Clayton  (Calthrop),  John,  i.  71 
Clayton,  Sir  Oscar,  ii.  304 
Cleaver,  Mr.   Reginald,   his   drawings 

in  the  Daily  Graphic,  i.  268 
Clerkenwell  e.xplosion,  ii.  125-127 
Clinton,  Lord  Edward  Pelham,  ii.  25 
Cockburn,  Sir   Alexander,    i.    146;  ii. 

199,  200,  201  ;  summing   up   in    the 

Claimant's  case,  219 
Cocks,  Mr.  Somers,  i.  99 
Cole,    Sir    Henry,    i.    345 ;    and    the 

Paris    International     Exhibition    of 

1867,  ii.  108,  no 
Cole,  Mr.  J.  W. ,  allusion  to  his  "Life 

and    Theatrical  Times  of    Charles 

Kean,"  i.  252 
Coleridge  on  the  trade  of  authorship, 

i-  364 
Colosseum,  Regent's  Park,  The,  i.  69 

et  seq.  ;     performance    by    Arabian 

acrobats,  69-71 
Colosseum,  Rome,  ii.  loi 
Combermere,  Field-Marshal  Viscount, 

i.  24 
Combermere,  Viscountess,    i.    24 ;  ii. 

303.  335 


INDEX 


361 


Comic  Times,  The,  i.  277 

Corppton,  Mr.,  i.  161 

Conservative   Magasine^    The,    i.  222- 

226 
Consort,  Prince,  death   of,  i.  -iT^,,  374, 

375 

Constable,  Sir  Clifford,  ii.  130 

Constantinople  ;  view  from  the  Bos- 
phorus,  ii.  268 ;  Hotel  de  Byzance, 
268  ;  as  described  by  N.  P.  Willis, 
Miss  Pardee,  and  Theophile  Gautier, 
270  ;  harems  on  tramways,  270  ;  visit 
to  mosque  of  St.  Sophia,  270 ;  By- 
zantine mosaics,  270,  271  ;  dancing 
and  howling  Dervishes,  271  ;  dogs, 
272-274  ;  a  smoking  party,  275-277  ; 
Mr.  Scudamore's  appointment  at  the 
Post  Office,  277  ;  proclamation  of  new 
constitution,  288  ;  discomforts,  288  ; 
manners  of  the  people,  289,  290;  in- 
stance of  religious  toleration,  289, 
290  ;  a  Moslem  cookshop,  288 

Consuls,  literary  men  as,  i.  275,  276 

Convict  ship  in  the  Thames,  A,  i.  122 

Cook,  Grattan,  i.  61 

Cook,  Mr.  Thomas,  and  his  Tourist 
Agency,  ii.  186-188 

Cooper,  John,  recites  a  monody  at 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,  i.  49  ;  friend- 
ship with  Macready,  157 

Cooper,  Miss,  i.  190 

Copeland,  Mr.  W.  H.,  of  Theatres 
Royal,  Dover  and  Liverpool,  i.  117; 
ii.  186 

Cordova,  ii.  57,  58,  241 

Cornhill  Alagazine,  i.  354-356,  358 

Costa,  Sir  Michael,  at  Her  Majesty's 
Theatre,  i.  89 

Costello,  Dudley,  i.  179 

Coutts,  Mr.  Thomas,  i.  24 

Covent  Garden  Theatre  ;  first  appear- 
ance of  Madame  A.  J.  J.  Sala,  i.  22  ; 
performance  on  the  eve  of  the  e.x- 
pected  Chartist  riots,  184 

Coxwell,  Mr.  Henry,  i.  239 

Crampton,  Sir  John,  i.  123;  ii.  47,  48 

Crellin,  Mr.,  i.  143 

Creswick,  Mr. ,  tragedian,  i.  258 

CrJcklewood,  i.  31-33 


Crimean  War,  ii.  34,  35 

Cross,  Viscount,  and  the  "Claimant," 
ii.  221 

Crosse,  Mr.,  and  his  menagerie,  i. 
264 

Crown  Court,  King  Street,  i.  80,  81 

"  Crowquill,  Alfred"  (see  Forester, 
Alfred) 

Cruikshank,  George,  his  illustrations 
to  Dickens's  works,  i.  75  ;  his  illustra- 
tions to  "Jack  Sheppard,"  87;  fu- 
neral, 95  ;  his  advice  to  the  author, 
171,  172 

Cruikshank,  Robert,  i.  175 

Cunningham,  Peter,  i.  366,  367  ;  his 
"  Handbook  for  London,"  367 

Curee,  Dr.,  i.  14 

Daily  Telegraph,  i.  15  ;  author's  article 
on  Dickens,  309  ;  author's  first  visit 
to  the  office,  315,  316  ;  author's  first 
articles,  316,  329,  330  ;  the  first  offi- 
ces, 329  ;  commencement  of  Sir  Ed- 
win Arnold's  connection,  ii.  5  ;  advo- 
cates the  demolition  of  Temple  Bar, 
250 

Dallas,  E.  M.,  ii.  2 

Dalley,  Hon.   William  Bede,   ii.   342, 

343 
Dance,  Charles,  i.  129,  163 
Dancing  Dervishes,  ii.  271 
Dandies  at  Gore  House,  i.  45,  46  ;  of 

seventeen,  76,  77 
Darling,  Miss  Caroline,  lessee  of  The- 
atre Royal,  Dover,  i.  116 
Davenport,  Mr.  H.  L. ,  i.  190 
Davidge,  Mr.,  as  Malvolio,  i.  190 
Davis,  Mr.,  his  affair  with  Colonel  Eld, 

i.  27 
Davison,  Mr.  James,  ii.  39 
Deanery  Club,  i.  147 
Delavigne,  Casimir,  the  two  sons  of,  i. 

108 
Depew,  Mr.  Chauncey,  ii.  336 
Derby,  Lord,  and  the  paper  duties,  i. 

320;  and  the  "Book  of  Nonsense," 

320 
Dervishes  at  Constantinople,  ii.  271 
Dicey,  Mr.  Edward,  ii.  78,  79,  209 


362 


INDEX 


Uickens,    Alfred,     engineer,     i.    349, 

367 
Dickens,   Charles  ;  his    adaptation    of 
one  of  the  "  Sketches  by  Boz,"  i.  59  ; 
the  dramatic  version  of  his  "  Oliver 
Twist,"  64  ;  author's  first  acquaint- 
ance with  him,  74;  excitement  cre- 
ated by  his  works,  74,  75  ;  theatrical 
at  his   London    residence,   92;    and 
Macrone's  purchase  of  the  copyright 
of  "  Sketches  by  Boz,"  144  ;  and  the 
Billy    Taylor   pantomime,    253 ;  his 
estimate    of  Louis    Napoleon,   254 ; 
author's  article  on  him  in  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  309  ;  matrimonial  troub- 
les and  quarrel  with  publishers,  317  ; 
starts  All  the  Year  Round,  318,  345  ; 
ii.  18;  first  appearance  as  a  public 
lecturer,  132 
Dickens,  jun. ,  Mr.  Charles,  ii.  200 
Dickens,  Frederick,  i.  367,  368 
Dicks,  Mr.  John,  at  Mentone,  ii.  296 
Dickson,  Colonel,  of  the  Tithes  Com- 
missioners' Office,  i.  99 
Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  ii.  304 
Dilke,  Charles  Wentworth,  i.  245 
Dixon,  Wm.  Hepworth,  i.  378 
Dizi,  Madame,  i.  103 
Dogs  of  Constantinople   and  Eyoub, 

ii.  271-274 
Donizetti,   his   compositions    and   his 
acquaintance  with  author's  mother, 
i.   40;    his   last  days,  41;    appoint- 
ment  given   to  his   relative   by  the 
Sultan,  41,  42 
Dore,  Gustave,  ii.  109 
D'Orsay,   Count,   Lady  Blessington's 

opinion  of  his  appearance,  i.  45 
D'Orsay,    Lady    Harriet,    afterwards 
wife  of  Mr.   Spencer  Cowper,   iii  ; 
and  the  sale  of  a  ringlet  to  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  iii 
Dover:  a  meeting  with  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  i.  38  ;  the  Theatre  Roy- 
al and  some  of  its  lessees,  114-120; 
a  military  funeral,  120 
Dramatists,  remuneration  of,  i.  93 
Draper,  Mr.   Edward,  on  the  staff  of 
the  Illustrated  Times,  i.  271 


Drury  Lane  Theatre  :  performance  of 
Alaid  of  Artois^  i.  48  ;  of  jf alius 
CcEsar,  13S  ;  the  Meiningen  Troupe, 
141  ;  the  production  of  Monte  Crista, 
180 

Dufferin,  Earl  of,  ii.  319,  320,  324,  349 

Dumanoir,  i.  ic8 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  the  younger,  at 
school  with  the  author,  i.  108 ;  ii. 
109;  "  Durham  Letter,"  Lord  John 
Russell's,  i.  214 

Duvernay,  Mile.,  i.  62 

Dyne,  John  Godfrey,  Principal  of  Bol- 
ton House  School,  Turnham  Green, 
i-  '^12,'  139.  140 

Earle,  General,  ii.  25 

East,  Mr.  Quartermaine,  ii.  130 

"  Echoes  of  the  Week,"  i.  366 

Edgware,  i.  9 

Edinburgh,  Duke  of,  his  marriage,  ii. 
215;  a  proposal  to  make  H.R.H. 
the  "King  of  Byzantium,"  275;  at 
the  coronation  of  the  Tsar  Alexan- 
der III.,  328 

Edwards,  Mr.  Sutherland,  on  the  staff 
of  the  Illustrated  Times,  i.  271,  304  ; 
musical  critic  of  the   Times,  ii.  39, 
286 

Egan  the  Elder,  Pierce,  his  sporting 
books  and  reminiscences  of  sporting 
characters,  i.  202-204 

Egan  the  Younger,  Pierce,  i.  204 

Eld,  Lieut. -Col.,  Master  of  the  Cere- 
monies at  Brighton,  i.  27 

Elliot,  Sir  Henry,  ii.  279 

Ellis,  Mr.  George,  and  the  pantomime 
of  Dilly  Taylor,  i.  252,  253 

Envelopes,  introduction  of,  i.  122 

Escorial,  The,  ii.  50 

Etzensberger,  Mr.,  ii.  66,  90,  96 

Eugenie,  Empress,  and  her  palace  at 
Marseilles,  ii.  40 ;  her  influence  in 
promoting   the    war    with    Prussia, 

155 
Execution,  last  public,  ii.  127 
Executions,  newspaper  reports  of,  ii. 

123 
Exeter  'Change,  i.  56,  317  ;  ii.  137 


INDEX 


363 


Ivvplosion  at    Clerkenwell   House    of 

Detention,  ii.  125-127 
Kykyn,  Mr.  Roger,  ii.  229 
Eyoub,   mosque  and  dogs  of,  ii.  273, 

274 

Fairfield,  Captain,  author's  godfather, 

i.  6 
"  Fairy  Godmother,"  A,  i.  7,  8 
Family  Herald,  The,  and  the  author's 

first  literary  efforts,  i.  179 
Farren,  Miss,  i.  320 
Farren,  Miss  Nellie,  in  Wat  Tyler,  ii. 

138.  139 

Farren,  William,  i.  50,  96 ;  in  the  Dou- 
ble-bedded Room,  161  ;  and  the  cock 
salmon,  191 

Faucit,  Miss  Helen  {see  Martin,  Lady 
Theodore) 

Faucit,  Saville,  i.  174 

Fawcett,  Sir  George,  ii.  286 

Fearon,  Madame,  i.  126,  127 

Fenians  :  Outrage  at  the  House  of  De- 
tention, ii.  126,  127 

Ferrara  :  associations  of  Lucrezia  Bor- 
gia, ii.  87-90 

Fieschi,  i.  51,  52 

Fife,  Duke  of,  ii.  203,  316 

Fiiippi,  Dr.  Carlo,  ii.  93,  97 

Finnerty,  Peter,  and  the  Walcheren 
Expedition,  ii.  84  ;  and  Lord  Castle- 
reagh,  84 

Fitzclarence,  Lady  Augusta,  one  of 
the  author's  godmothers,  i.  7 

Fitzherbert,  Charles,  i.  19 

Fitz-James,  Mr.,  i.  173 

Fitzroy  Theatre,  i.  94 

Fitz-Williams,  Mrs.,  i.  190 

Fleet  Prison,  i.  127 

Flunkeys,  adventure  amongst,  ii.  115, 
116 

Fonveille,  M.  de,  ii.  142,  144-147 

l''orl)ach.  Rattle  of,  ii.  166 

Forbes,  Mr.  Archibald,  ii.  168,  229,  243  ; 
dinner  in  his  honour,  306,  307;  lect- 
uring tour  in  the  Colonies,  334 

I'"ord,  Lieut. -Col.,  i.  2,  3  ;  ii.  25 

P'orester,  Alfred,  and  his  "  No  Pop- 
ery "  cartoons,  i.  214,  215 


Forster,  Henry  Ramsey,  i.  333  ;  ii.  7 
Forster,    Mr.    John,     allusion    to    his 

"Life  of  Charles  Dickens,"  i.  251 
Fortescue,  Mr.  Chichester  (afterwards 

Lord  Carlingford),  i.  63 
Foster,  Peter  Le  Neve,  i.  245;  ii.  222 
Fox,  Sir  Charles,  i.  245 
Francis  Joseph,  Emperor,  ii.  64,  120 
Franco-Prussian  War,  ii.  196  ct  seq. 
"Frank  hunters,"  i.  122,  123 
Frankfurt,  ii.  44 
Franklin,  Sir  John,  projected  balloon 

expedition  in  search  of,  i.  239,  240 
Frascati   Salon,  concert  given  by  au- 
thor's mother,  i.  108,  109 
French    Revolution  of  1848,   and  the 

expulsion  of  English  workmen  from 

France,  i.  179,  180 
Frere,  Sir  Bartle,  i.  146 
Frias,  Duke  of,  i.  123  ;  ii.  48 
Friswell,  Mr.  James  Hain,  defendant 

in  an  action  for  libel,  ii.  198-201 
Frith,  Sir.  W.  P.,  ii.  11 
Frost-bite,  a  preventive  for,  ii.  263 
Fuseli,  Henry,  i.  173 

Gage,  Lieut. -Col.,  i.  19,  20 

Gaiety  Theatre,  ii.  137  ;  production  of 
Wat  Tyler,  137-139 

Gale,  Lieutenant,  his  balloon  project 
for  searching  for  Sir  John  Franklin, 
i.  238-242  ;  killed  at  Bordeaux,  242 

Gallenga,  Antonio,  ii.  19,  49,  53,  143, 
146,  228,  229,  230,  231,  232,  235-237, 
274 

Gallini,  Sir  John,  i.  i,  138 

Gambling  at  the  Salon  Frascati,  i.  109  ; 
at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  234  ;  at  Hom- 
burg,  323,  324;  ii.  44;  at  Monte 
Carlo,  364 

Garcia,  Evelina,  at  the  Princess's  The- 
atre, i.  129 

Garcia,  Pauline,  at  a  concert  in  Paris, 
i.  no 

Garibaldi:  condition  of  his  army,  ii. 
69 ;  interview  with  the  author,  70, 
71 ;  appearance  and  occupations  in 
the  United  States,  72  ;  character  and 
designs   in  Italy,   73  ;  uniform   as  a 


364 


INDEX 


General  in  Italian  army,  ^ji  \  the 
support  accorded  him  by  English 
ladies,  74;  and  Napoleon  III.,  74; 
reception  in  London  and  incident  at 
Stafford  House,  79 ;  return  to  Cap- 
rera,  82 
Garrick    Club,    and   the    portraits    of 

Charles  James  Matthews,  i.  32 
"  Gaslight  and  Daylight,"  i.  335,  361 
Gay,  Mr.  Drew,  ii.  243 
Gendarme,  The  Prussian,  i.  231 
Geneva,    author's    experiences  in,   ii. 

182 
George  I.,  and  one  of  his  partialities, 

i-  43 
George  IV. ,  death  of,  i.  8 
Gibraltar,  ii.  243,  244 
Gibson,  General  Randall,  ii.  309 
Gifford,   Countess  of  (formerly   Lady 

Dufferin),  i.  25 
Gilchrist,  Dr.,  i.  152 
Gladstone,  Mr.,  ii.  304,  344 
Glossop,  Miss,  i.  54 
Glossop,  Mrs.  Fearon,  i.  126 
Glover,  Mrs.,  in  the  Love  Ckase,  i.  96 
Glover,  Rudolph  Gustavus,  i.  367 ;  ii. 

103 
Glyn,  Miss,  i.  190;  ii.  2 
Godwin,  George,  of  the  Builder,  i.  61  ; 

his  pamphlet  on  "Temple  Bar,"  ii. 

251 
Gold  fever  in  London,  i.  194 
Goldsmith,    Oliver,   his   benevolence, 

and  the  school  in  which  he  learned 

it,  i.  206 
Goodford,  Dr.,  i.  372 
Gordon,  General,  ii.  27 
Gore  House,  author's  visit  as  a  youth, 

i.  44 ;  some  of  the  visitors,  44-47 
Gormandising  in  society,  i.  20,  21 
Gower,  Lord  Ronald,  and  Garibaldi, 

ii.  79 
Graham,    Sir  James,  ordering   letters 

to  Mazzini  to  be  opened  at  the  Post 

Office,  i.  287,  288 
Graham,  James  Lorimer,  ii.  23,  128 
Granada,  ii.  58,  243 
Grant,  James,  of  the  Morning  Adver- 
tiser, ii.  12-14 


Granville,  Lady,  at  a  concert  in  Paris 

given  by  author's  mother,  i.  109 
Granville,  Lord,  i.  375 
Grattan,  Mr.  H.  P.  ,i.  127 
Grattan,  Mrs.  H.  P.,  i.  129,  165 
Great  Eastern  steamship,  its  history, 

i-  344-350 
Great  E.xhibition,  The,  i.  215,  216 
"  Great  Exhibition  wot  is  to  be.  The," 

i.  216,  217 
Green,  Mr.  Charles,  and  the  Nassau 

balloon,  i.  125,  239,  247 
Greenacre,  James,  murder  committed 

by,  i.  83 
Greenbaclis,  value   during   American 

War,  ii.  23,  24 
Green-room,    The  ;     probable    origin 

and  meaning  of  term,  i.  90,  91 ;  of 

St.  James's  Theatre,  91-96  ;  of  the 

Haymarket  Theatre,  96,  97 
Greenwood,  Mr.  Frederick,  on  the  staff 

of  the  Illustrated  Tunes,  i.  271,  314 
Greenwood,  Mr.  James,  i.  314 
Gregory,  Sir  William,  and  the  study 

of  Greek,  i.  loi 
Greig,  Admiral,  ii.  261,  262 
Greig,  General,  ii.  261,  262 
Grieve,  Thomas,  i.  50 
Grieve,  William,  i.  50 
Grimes,  the  name  of,  and  the  pewter- 

ing  trade,  i.  38 
Grimstone,  and  his  "  Eye  Snuff,"  i.  12 
Grisi,  Giulietta,  at  a  concert  in  Paris, 

i.  no;    singing  a  verse  of  the  Na- 
tional  Anthem    at   Covent   Garden 

Theatre,  184 
Grosvenor,  Lord    Robert  (afterwards 

Lord  Ebury),  his  Bill    to   suppress 

Sunday  trading,  i.  265 
Grosvenor  Gallery,  ii.  305 
Grousset,  M.  Pascal,  ii.  142 
Gruneisen,  Mr.  Charles  Lewis,  ii.  83 
Gubbins,  Miss,  afterwards  Viscountess 

Combermere,  i.  25 
Guerbel,  Count  Constantine  de,  i.  298 
Guido,  and   his    portrait  of   Beatrice 

Cenci,  ii.  103,  104 
Guthrie,  Mr.  G.  J.,  surgeon,  i.  12,  97, 

98 


INDEX 


365 


Haghe,  Louis,  i.  171 

Hague,  The,  performance  of  La  yuive 
at,  ii.  46 

Halford,  Sir  Henry,  i.  8 

Hall.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  C,  i.  95 

Hall,  Mr.  Sydney,  ii.  161 

Halle,  Mr.  C.,  ii.  305 

Halliday,  Mr.  Andrew,  ii.  133 

Halstead,  Mr.  Murat,  ii.  311 

Halswelle,  Mr,  Keeley,  as  an  artist, 
i.  268,  269 

Hamilton,  Lord  Frederick,  ii.  319,  320 

Hamlet,  Mr.,  landlord  of  the  Prin- 
cess's Theatre,  i.  125 

Hamlet :  Shakespeare  said  to  have 
played  the  part  of  the  Ghost,  i.  118, 
119 

Hannay,  James,  on  the  staff  of  the 
Illustrated  Times,  i.  272,  273  ;  early 
life,  272,  273  ;  admiration  of  Thack- 
eray for,  273  ;  epigram  on  Robert 
Brough  and  the  author,  274  ;  satire 
on  three  essayists,  274  ;  literary 
works  and  editorship  of  the  Edin- 
burgh Courant,  275  ;  British  Consul 
at  Barcelona,  275,  337  ;  ii.  2,  211 

Hanover  Square  Rooms  :  Bolton 
House  School  examination  and  dra- 
matic performance,  i.  138,  139 

Hanoverian  horses,  ii.  125 

Harcourt,  Sir  William  Vernon,  and 
the  Saturday  Review,  i.  363,  364  ;  ii. 

Hardman,  Mr.  Frederick,  ii.  83 
Hardman,  Sir  William,  i.  249 
Harley,  John  Pritt,  stage-manager  at 

St.  James's  Theatre,  i.  60,  61 
Harris,  Sir   Augustus,  i.   126  ;    ii.  39, 

134 

Harrison,  Captain,  of  the  Great  East- 
em,  i.  345,  347.  349 

Hart,  Mr.  Ernest,  ii.  205 

Hawley,  Sir  Joseph,  ii.  29 

Hayes,  Miss  Catherine,  vocalist,  i.  86 

Haymarkct  Theatre  ;  the  green-room, 
i.  97;  engagement  of  author's  moth- 
er, 97 ;  performance  of  the  l.ove 
Chase,  97  ;  Mrs.  A.  J.  J.  Sala's  ben- 
efit, 98 


Haynau,  Marshal,  and  the  Caffe'  Pier- 
ian, ii.  86 

Hayward,  Abraham,  ii.  304 

Hemming,  Mr. ,  proprietor  of  the  Cafe 
de  I'Europe,  i.  167  ;  offends  Mac- 
ready,  168 

Henderson,  Mr.,  one  of  the  contract- 
ors for  the  Great  Exhibition,  i.  244 

Henty,  Mr.  George,  ii.  67,  82,  93,  243 

Her  Majesty's  Theatre  ;  its  green- 
room, i.  89 ;  Sir  Michael  Costa  and 
the  singers,  89,90  ;  Laporte's  lessee- 
ship,  250  ;  Mr.  Lumley's  lesseeship, 
249,  250 

Herbert,  Hon.  Allen,  ii.  178 

Hermit  of  St.  Albans,  The,  i.  368 

Heme  Bay,  i.  121,  122 

Hessian  troops  hired  by  the  English 
Government,  ii.  46 

Higgins,  Matthew,  i.  372 

Hine,  Mr.  H.  G. ,  as  artist  on  Punch, 
i.  170  ;  his  after  career,  171 

Hobart  Pasha,  ii.  275 

Hobart  Town,  author's  lecturing  visit 
to,  ii.  427 

Hodder,  George,  i.  333 

Hogarth,  Mr.  George,  i.  318 

"  Hogarth  Papers,"  i.  354-356,  358 

Hogg,  Dr.  Jabez,  i.  169 

Hollingshead,  John,  his  belief  that 
Shakespeare  played  the  part  of 
Ghost  in  Hamlet,  i.  118,  119,  3.;5  ; 
lessee  and  manager  of  the  Gaiety 
Theatre,   ii.   137 ;    and    Wat    Tyler, 

137-139 

Holmes,  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell,  ii.  336 

Holt,  Mr.  Thomas  Littleton,  his  jour- 
nalistic partnership  with  Mr.  Gil- 
bert a  Beckett,  i.  94  ;  editor  of  C/^^A 
181,  182  ;  his  numerous  journalistic 
ventures  and  his  final  collapse,  197- 
202  ;  and  the  Iron  Times,  199-201  ; 
sub-editor  of  Conservative  Maga- 
zine, 225;  and  the  "Leave  Us 
Alone  Club,"  266,  267 

Homburg,  gambling  adventures  at,  i. 
323,  324  ;  ii.  44,  137,  205 

Honolulu,  author's  visit  to,  ii.  341 

Hood,  Jr.,  Tom,  i.  367,  note 


366 


INDEX 


Hook,  Theodore,  his  appearance  and 
wit,  i.  46,  47  ;  his  sketch  of  a  green- 
room, go 
Hope,  Mr.  Beresford,  i.  376,  377 
"  Hopeful,"  Mr.,  induces  the  author 
to  set  out  on  a  gambhng  adventure 
at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  i.  227  ei  scq.; 
his  fortunes   at   the   gaming   table, 

234 

Horn,  Mr.,  of  the  Journal  de  St.  Pet- 
ersburg, ii.  254 

Horner,  Mr.,  his  panorama  of  London 
at  the  Colosseum,  i.  67 

Horsey,  Admiral  de,  ii.  24 

Horton,  Miss  P.,  i.  54;  afterwards 
Mrs.  German  Reed,  58 

Houghton,  Lord,  a  pall-bearer  at  fu- 
neral of  George  Cruikshank,  i.  95  ; 
and  the  Paris  Exhibition  of  1867,  ii. 
109,  304,  307 

Household  Words :  author's  first  arti- 
cle, i.  251  ;  author  sent  to  Russia  to 
prepare  articles  on  his  experiences, 
282,  283  ;  the  number  of  articles  by 
author,  310;  sold  by  auction,  318 

"  How  I  Tamed  Mrs.  Cruiser,"  i.  314, 
361 

Howling  Dervishes,  ii.  271 

Hudson,  Georg-°,  i.  179  ;  author's  ar- 
ticle in  the  Conservative  Alagazine 
on,  224,  225 

Hugo,  Victor,  allusion  to  his  "  Rhin," 
ii.  104 

Hull,  Lieutenant  Gale's  lecture  at,  i. 
240-242 

Hullah,  Mr.  John,  and  the  music  of 
The  Village  Coquettes,  i.  59 

"Hullah  System,"  The,  i.  134 

Hunt,  Leigh,  i.  367,  note 

Hunter,  Sir  W.  W.,  ii.  349 

Hurlburt,  William  Henry,  ii.  32-34 

Hyde  Park  Sunday  closing  agitation, 
i.  265  ;  desertion  of  the  Lady's  Mile 
on  Sundays,  265 

Hyndman,  Mr.  Henry  M. ,  ii.  67,  68, 
82,  93 

Ignatieff,  General,  ii.  284,  285 
Ikons  at  Kieff,  ii.  263 


Illustrated  London  News  and  Mr.  Her- 
bert Ingram,  i.  169,  314 ;  and 
"  Echoes  of  the  Week," 366 

Illustrated  Times,  its  proprietors  and 
staff,  i.  269,  270  ;  sold  to  Mr.  Her- 
bert Ingram,  314 

Imperial,  Prince,  at  Sandhurst,  ii.   154 
[    Income  Tax,  its  unjust  and  iniquitous 

character,  ii.  249 
I   Incomes  of  literary  men,  ii.  248,  249 

Indian  Lorette,  ii.  30 

Indian  Mutiny,  incident  in  the,  ii.  92 

Ingram,  Herbert,  and  the  Man  in  the 

Moon,  i.    169  ;  buys   the   Illustrated 

Times,    314 ;      starts    the     Welcome 

Guest,  314  ;  with  the  author  on  the 

j        Great  £astern,  2^s,  24S,  366 

;   Ingram,  Sir  William,  i.  345 

Institute  of  Journalists,  i.  365 

International  Exhibition  (London), 
1862,  i.  375,  376 

International     P-xhibition     (London), 
;       1871,  ii.  205 

International  Exhibition  (Paris),  1867, 
ii.  106-113  ;  architectural  features, 
107  ;  mterest  of  Napoleon  III.,  107  ; 
the  Commissioners,  107,  108  ;  Sir 
Henry  Cole's  literary  exhibit,  108  ; 
opening,  109 ;  commissariat,  109, 
no;  "  Le  Cottage  Anglais,"  iio; 
beer  ea/e's,  iii  ;  distribution  of 
prizes,  112,  113 ;  royal  visitors,  120 

Internat'onal  Exhibition  (Paris),  1878, 

ii-  305 

Ireland,  discontent  of,  1848,  i.  185 

Iron  Times,  The,  i.  199-201 

Irving,  Henry,  entertains  the  Meinin- 
gen  Troupe,  i.  141  ;  ii.  339 

Italy  :  war  with  Austria,  ii.  66-82  ;  cur- 
rency, 102 

Ivanoff,  i.  43 

Jackson,  Colonel  Basil,  ii.  280,  281 

Jaime,  the  dramatist,  i.  108 

James,  Mr.  Edwin,  defending  Claude 

Bernard  at  the  Old  Bailey,  i.  351 
James,  Sir  Henry,  i.  311 
Janin,  Jules,  i.  339 
Jarvis,  Sir  William,  ii.  346 


lis' D  EX 


1(^7 


Jefferson,  Mr.  Joseph,  ii.  36,  37,  315 

Jerrold,  Blanchard,  i.  328  ;  and  Tem- 
J>le  Bar,  359,  367 

Jerrold,  Douglas,  relations  with  Shir- 
ley Brooks,  i.  165  ;  his  resemblance 
to  Montgolfier,  256 

Jewesbury,  Miss  Geraldine,  i.  313 

Johnson,  Dr.,  and  "  Queenie,"  i.  7  ; 
opinion  of  Milton's  appearance,  44  ; 
his  compassion  and  the  school  in 
which  he  learned  it,  206 ;  his  allu- 
sion to  the  internal  aspect  of  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  ii.  206 

Jones,  Mr   Atherly,  i.  365 

Jones.  Mr.  Mason,  recites  "  Paradise 
Lost,"  ii.  132,  133 

Jones,  Mr.  Owen,  i.  245;  "Journey 
Due  North,"  i.  282-306,  322,  325, 
361 

Jullien,  M.,  unintentionally  carica- 
tured by  the  author,  i.  2S3,  284 


Kalkbrenner,  i.  -jj,  78 

Kean,  Charles,  i.  93,  255,  257 

Kean,  lidmund,  and  the  Savage  Club, 

i.  263 
Keeley,    Mr.  and  Mrs.,  at    the    Prin- 
cess's Theatre,  i.  129 
Keith,   Viscount  and    Viscountess,  i. 

6.7 

Kemble,  Charles,  i.  22 

Kenealy,  Dr.  :  scholarship  and  early 
life,  ii.  217;  defence  of  the  "  Claim- 
ant," 218  ;  and  John  Bright,  218 

Kenny,  Charles  Lnmb,  i.  129,  197  ;  and 
the  Man  in  the  Mcon,  165  ;  and  Tem- 
ple Bar,  359 

Kieff,  ii.  263 

Kilpack's  '■  Divan,"  i.  125 

King's  Theatre,  Haymarket  (afterward 
Her  Majesty's),  i.  i 

Knight,  Charles,  i.  319 

Knobel,  Air.  Edward,  i.  16 

Knout,  The,  in  Russia,  i.  290 

Koniggratz,  Battle  of,  ii.  81 

Ko'zebue,  August  von,  and  the  apoc- 
ryphal will  of  Peter  the  Great,  ii. 
254 


Lablache,  i.  43  ;  at  a  concert  in  Paris, 
no 

Labouchere,  Mr.  Henry,  and  the 
Queen's  Theatre,  ii.  132-134  ;  inter- 
est in  Watts  Phillips,  136,  148,  149  ; 
and  the  "  Claimant,"  207,  208  ;  and 
Truth,    314,  336;  and    Pigott,    350- 

353 
Lacy,  Mr.  Walter,  i.  129 
Lacy,  Mrs.  Walter,  i.  98 
"  Lady   Chesterfield's    Letters    to  her 

Daughter,"  i.  361 
Lady's  Newspaper,  The,  i.  176 
Lamb,  Lady  Caroline,  and  her  page, 

i.  58 
"  Land  of  the  Golden  Fleece,"  The, 

ii-  344 
Landells,  Ebenezer,  i.  171.  176 
Landseer,  R.  A.,  Charles,  i.  173 
Landseer,  Sir  Edwin,  ii.  2 
Lansdowne  House,  i.  47 
Laporte,    AL,    and    his   lesseeship   of 

Her  Majesty's  Theatre,  i.  250 
Lawley,  Hon.  Francis,  ii.  5,  29,  180 
Lawrence,  Mr.,  surgeon,  i.  12 
Lawrence,  Mr.  Frederick,  ii.  133 
Lawson,   Sir    Edward,   i.    15,  315;  ii- 

200,  201,  216,  220 
Lawson,  Mr.  Lionel,  i.  316;  ii.  137 
Layard.  Sir  Henry,  ii.  241,  283 
Le  Flo,  General,  ii.  262 
Le  Play,  M. ,  and  the  Paris  E.xhibition 

of  1867,  ii.  107 
Le  Sage,  Mr.,  ii.  317,  325,  326,  331 
Le  Thiere,  Baron,  i.  26 
Le  Thiere,  Miss  Roma  Guillon,  i.  26, 

131 
Lear,  Mr.,  painter,  i.  320 
"  Leave  Us  Alone  Club,"  The,  i.  266, 

267 
Leboeuf,  Marshal,  on  the  condition  of 

the  French  army,  ii.  94,  157 
Lefevre,  Marshal,  i   296 
Leffler,  Adam,  i   64 
Leigh,  Percival,  i.  168 
Leighton,  Mr.  John,  ii.  9 
Leisure  Hour,  i.  313 
Lcmarchant,  Sir  Denis,  i.  147 
Lemon,  Mark,  i.  165  ;  ii.  246 


368 


INDEX 


Lennox,  Lord  Henry  Gordon,  i.  379 
"  Leonine  City,"  The,  ii.  183,  184 
Leslie,    Mr.,    British  Consul  at  War- 
saw, ii.  261 
Leslie,  Mr.  Henry,  ii.  261 
Letters  opened  by  Post  Office  author- 
ities, i.  287 
Lever,  Charles,  his  attack  on  Cook's 

Tourist  Agency,  ii.  187 
Levy,  Mr.  Edward,  i.  316 
Levy,  Mr.  J.  M.,  i.  315,  316;  ii.  306 
Lewis,  Sir  George,  and  the  action  for 
libel  against  Mr.   Friswell,   ii.    197, 

198.  324 
Lexicographers,  characteristics  of,  i. 

90 
Libel  action  against  Mr.   Friswell,  ii. 

198-201 
Lincoln,  Mr.  Robert,  ii.  311 
Lincoln,  Abraham,    his  assassination, 

ii-  39 

Lindsay,  Sir  Coutts,  ii.  305 

Linley,  George,  and  "The  Bride  of 
Castelnuovo,"  i.  151,  152 

Literary  men,  incomes  of,  ii.  2-18,  249; 
their  studies,  297,  298 

Livesey,  John,  ii.  20,  21 

Livius,  Mr.  Barham,  i.  96 

Lloyd,  Mr.  Edward,  proprietor  of 
"  Penny  Dreadfuls,''  and  afterward 
founder  of  Lloyd's  Weekly  A^e-cvspa- 
per,  i.  173,  174 

TJoytTs  Weekly  Xcwspapcr,  i.  328 

Lobanoff,  Prince,  ii.  316 

Loch,  Sir  Henry,  and  the  "  fairy  god- 
mother," i,  7  ;  ii.  344 

Loder,  Edward,  and  the  Night  Dan- 
cers, i.  151 

Loder,  John,  leader  of  the  orcliestra 
at  the  Princess's,  i.  151 

Loftus,  Lord  Augustus,  ii.  253,  265, 
342 

London  :  illustrations  of  its  "  small- 
ness,"  i.  57,  58,  85  ;  panorama  at  the 
Colosseum,  Regent's  Park,  67  ;  Mr. 
Zangwill's  descriptions,  268 

London  edited  by  the  author,  i.  278 

"  Looking  at  Life,"  i.  335,  361 

Lord  Mayor's  Shows,  li.  124 


Loseby,  Miss  Constance,  in  Wat  Ty- 
ler, ii.  137 

Lowe,  Mr.,  correspondent  of  the  Times 
in  Moscow,  ii.  329 

Lowe,  General  Edward,  ii.  280 

Lowe,  Sir  Hudson,  ii.  280,  281 

Lowe,  James,  i.  313 

Lucas,  Mr.  Samuel,  i.  319 

Lucrezia  Borgia  as  represented  by  "Vic- 
tor Hugo,  ii.  88,  89 

Lucy,  Mr.  H.  W.,  and  Colonel  Fred 
Burnaby,  ii.  279 

Lumbago,  treatment  for,  ii.  321,  322 

Lumbley,  Mr.  Benjamin,  as  a  special 
constable,  i.  183  ;  kindness  to  the 
author,  249  ;  his  connection  with  La- 
porte  and  lesseeship  of  Her  Majes- 
ty's Theatre,  249,  250 

Lush,  Mr.  Justice,  ii.  219 

Lutz,  Herr  Meyer,  ii.  210 

Lyceum  Theatre,  i.  57 

Lyons,  condition  in  September,  1870, 
ii.  181 

Lyons,  Lord,  ii.  168,  177 

Lytton,  Lord,  and  his  novels,  i.  84,  86 

Macaulay,  Dr.,  i.  312,  313 

Macdonald,  Sir  James,  ii.  31       , 

Macfarren,  G.  A  .  i.  78 

Macgahan,  Alexander,  ii.  274,  275 

Mackay,  Charles,  ii.  19 

Maclise,  Daniel,  at  Gore  House,  i.  45 

Macmahon,  Marshal,  ii.  158,  166 

Macready,  William  Charles,  i.  49,  98  ; 
as  Brutus,  138  ;  as  Othello,  154,  15s  ; 
his  temper  at  rehearsals,  153-157  ;  as 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  155, 156  ;  his  priv- 
ate character,  157,  158  ;  and  Hem- 
ming's  mistake,  167,  168 

Macron,  John,  publisher,  and  the 
copyright  of  "  Sketches  by  Boz,"  i. 
144 

Maddox,  Mr.  John  Medex,  i.  66,  67  ; 
lesseeship  of  the  Princess's  Thea- 
tre, 124-129  ;  gives  employment  to 
the  author,  149 ;  and  Macready,  158 

Madrid,  the  carnival,  47,  49-53  : 
clitnate  in  winter,  225,  226  ;  entry  of 
King  Alfonso,  229,  230 


INDEX 


369 


Magee,  D'Arcy,  ii.  28 

Maginn,  Dr.  William,  i.  86;  ii.  75 

Mahomet,  Mr.  Frederick,  i.  168,  169 

Maidstone,  private  execution  at,  ii. 
122,   123 

"  Make  your  Game,"  i.  326 

Malaga,  ii.  58 

Malahide,  Lord  Talbot  de,  i.  378 

Malet,  Sir  Edward,  ii.  24 

Malibran,  Marie  Felicie,  i.  27,  28  ;  in 
the  Maid  0/  Artois,  48;  death,  50 

Alan  in  ike  Moon,  The  :  its  editors,  i. 
163  ;  author  employed  as  draughts- 
man, 163  ;  contributions  by  Angus 
Reach,  167  ;  financiers  and  editorial 
office,  169,  170 ;  Robert  Brough's 
contributions,  170 ;  sketches  by 
Hine,  170 ;  vignette  of  constable 
and  civilian,  185 

"  Manhattan,"  ii.  20 

Manin,  Daniel,  ii.  76 

Mantua,  ii.  86 

Marble,  Mr.  Manton,  ii.  33 

Mario,  Madame  Jesse  Merriton  White, 
ii.  74,  80 

Marriott,  Frederick,  proprietor  of 
Chat,  i.  181,  182  ;  his  Death  War- 
rant, Railway  Dell,  and  other 
journalistic  ventures,  192,  193  ;  edits 
San  Francisco  News  Letter,  ii.  314 

Marseilles :  its  improvement  under 
Napoleon  III.,  ii.  40 

Marston,  Mrs.  H.,  i.  190 

Martin,  Lady  Theodore,  i.  50,  174 

Mason,  Monk,  inmate  of  the  Charter 
House,  i.  125 

Masters  of  the  Ceremonies  at  Brighton 
and  other  places,  i.  27 

Matthews,  Charles :  incident  of  the 
debt  of  seven-and-sixpence,  and  the 
dinner  at  Willis's  Rooms,  i.  158, 
159  ;  in  Clarissa  Harlowe,  160  ;  at 
the  Lyceum,  162 

Matthews,  Charles  James,  portraits 
by,  i.  32 

Maude,  VC,  Colonel,  ii.  262 

Maxwell,  Mr.  John,  i.  82 ;  and  the 
starting  of  Temple  Bar,  358  ;  ii.  17, 
200 


Mayhew,  Athol,  ii.  164 

Mayhew,  Augustus,  on  the  staff  of  the 

Illustrated  Times,    i.    270 ;  and    the 

Rugeley  murder,  271,  272;  goes  to 

Homburg  with  the  author,  323,  324 
Mayhew,       Henry,       his       "  London 

Labour  and  London  Poor,"  i.  166; 

war  correspondent  at  Metz,  ii.  161, 

164 
Mayhew,  Horace,  i.  168 
Mayhew,    Julius,    i.    51  ;   journalistic 

ventures  of  himself  and  his  brothers, 

95 

Mayne,  Sir  Richard,  i.  260 ;  ii.  10 

Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  his  letters  operved 
at  the  General  Post  Office,  i.  287 

McGarell,  Mr.,  guardian  of  Mrs.  A. 
J.  J.  Sala  before  marriage,  i.  4 

McMurdo,  General,  i.  95 

Mead,  Mr.  Tom,  i.  190 

Medex,  Mr.  Samuel,  i.  124 

Meiningen  Troupe,  The,  at  Drury 
Lane,  i.  141 

Melbourne,  author's  lecturing  visit 
to,  ii.  343.  344 

Mellon,     Harriet     {see     St.     Albans, 
j       Duchess  of) 

!   Memory,  cultivation  and  discipline  of 
the,  i.  8,  18 

Menken,  Miss  Ada  Isaacs,  her  per- 
formance of  Mazeppa,  her  volume 
of  poems,  &c. ,  i.  194;  hallucination 
with  regard  to  her  real  name,  195 

Mentone,  ii.  296 

Metz :  condition  on  the  eve  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  War,  ii.  158 ;  as- 
semblage of  war  correspondents, 
160;  supposed  spies,  161,  164 

Meux,  Sir  Henry,  i.  36,  ii.  251 

Michau,  Madame,  i.  25,  26 

Milan,  ii.  67  ;  scene  in  Opera  House 
on  the  eve  of  war  with  Austria,  68. 
69  ;  branches  of  the  Sala  family,  69 

Miller,  Thomas,  "the  basket-weaving 
poet,"  i.  188 

Milman,  Dean,  at  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington's funeral,  i.  260 

Milton,  Dr.  Johnson's  opinion  of  his 
appearance,  i.  44 


11.^ — 24 


370 


INDEX 


Mitchell,  M.  Robert,  and  English  war 
corresiiondents,  ii.  155 

Monaco,  i.  229  ;  ii.  43 

Monck,  Lord,  ii.  27 

Moncrieff,  — ,  dramatic  author,  i.  125 

Mont  Cenis  Railway,  ii.  61,  62 

Monte  Carlo,  ii.  293,  294 

Montes,  Lola,  i.  194,  195 

Montmorency,  Falls  of,  ii.  30 

Montreal,  ii.  24-26,  31 

Moore,  Thomas,  i.  47,  58 

Morison,  Peter,  of  the  Bank  of  De- 
posit, finances  London,  279,  280 

Morinng  Advertiser  under  the  editor- 
ship of  James  Grant,  ii.  14 

Morning-  Chronicle,  i.  327 

Morning  Herald,  i.  55 

Morning  Post^  i.  55 ;  article  on  au- 
thor's letter  to  the  Times  on  balloon- 
ing, 247,  248 

Aforning  Star,  ii.  19 

Morris,  Mr.  Lewis,  comparative  mer- 
its as  a  poet,  ii.  3 

Morris,  Mr.  William,  comparative  mer- 
its as  a  poet,  ii   3,  68 

Morton,  Madison,  his  death  at  the 
Ciiarter  House,  i.  125  ;  and  Box  and 
Cox,  161 

Mosaics  of  St.  Sophia  mosque,  ii. 
270 

Nfoscow,  ii.  259  ;  coronation  of  Alex- 
ander III.,  325-332 

Mowatt,  Mrs.  Cora,  at  the  Olympic 
Theatre,  i.  igo 

Murat,  King  of  Naples,  i.  295 

Murders  by  Thurtell,  Greenacre,  and 
others,  i.  82-87 

Murillo's  picture  of  ''  San  Juan  de 
Dios,"  i.  206 

Murray,  Miss,  i.  57 

Mussulman  school.  A,  i.  70 

"  My  Diary  in  America  in  the  Midst 
of  War,"  ii.  36 

Naples :  journey  from  Rome,   ii.    104, 

105 

Napoleon  the  Great,  i.  125  ;  the  ques- 
tion of  his  justification  for  returning 
to   France  from   Elba,   ii.    194,    195; 


Sir  Hudson  Lowe's  custodianship  of 
him,  2S0,  281 

Napoleon,  Prince  Jerome,  ii.  114 

Napoleon,  Louis  :  his  costume  at  Gore 
House,  i.  46;  his  Boulogne  expedi- 
tion, 112;  as  special  constable,  183; 
and  the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  196 ; 
as  President  of  the  French  Repub- 
lic, 211;  his  coup  d'etat,  253;  at- 
tempt on  his  life  by  Orsini,  351 ;  and 
the  Crimean  War,  ii.  35,  36  ;  progress 
through  Algeria,  40,  41,  43  ;  the  au- 
thor's audience  of  him,  41 ;  and 
the  Austro-ltalian  War,  74,  81  ;  the 
cession  of  Venice,  94 ;  and  Pierre 
Bonaparte,  141 ;  and  war  corre- 
spondents, 154,  155  ;  leaves  Metz  for 
the  front,  166;  funeral  at  Chisle- 
hurst,  209,  210 

Nassau  balloon,  i.  125,  247 

Nathan,  Mr.,  costumier,  i.  139 

Nelson,  Marsh,  i.  125 

Nerot's  Hotel,  i.  53 

New  Orleans,  ii.  309,  310 

New  York  :  Gallenga's  description,  ii. 
19;  hotels,  22,  23  ;  Delmonico's  and 
La  Maison  Doree,  33 ;  authors 
lecturing  visit,  336,337;  the  Lotus 
Club,  336 

Newgate  novels,  i.  80-88 

Niagara,  ii.  23,  24,  91,  92 

Nice,  ii.  43,  293,  294 

Night  houses,  i.  335-337 

Nightingale,  Miss  Florence,  ii.  35 

Nisbett,  Mrs.,  in  the  Love  Chase,  i. 
96 

"  No  Popery  "  agitation,  The,  i.  214 

Noir,  Victor,  killed  by  Pierre  Bona- 
parte, ii.  142,  145 

Norfolk,  Duchess  of,  i.  98 

Norton,  Hon.  Caroline,  i.  25 

Novels,  Newgate,  i.  80-88 

O'Connor,  Feargus,  i.  182 
Odessa,  ii.  262-266 
Ogden,  ii.  311,  312 
Old  Bell's  Messenger,  i.  197 
Old  lady,  her  inevitable  presence  at 
public  meetings,  i.  241 


INDEX 


371 


Ollivier,  M.  Emile,  and  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  ii.  158 

Olympic  Theatre,  i.  93 

Omaha,  ii.  311 

Once  a  Week,  i.  318,  319 

Onslow,  M.P. ,  Mr.  Guildford,  ii.  130 

Oran,  ii.  42 

Orleans,  Duke  of,  and  the  purchase  of 
a  ringlet  from  Lady  Harriet  D'Or- 
say,  i.  Ill 

Orsini,  Felice,  his  attempt  to  assassi- 
nate Napoleon  III.,  i.  351 

O'Shea,  Mr.  John  Augustus,  ii.  161- 
164 

O.xenford,  John,  a  rhyme  on  the  ups 
and  downs  of  families,  by,  i.  3  ;  his 
review  of  "  A  Journey  Due  North," 
323 

"  Paddy  Green's,"  i.  263 

Padua,  ii.  67;  the  Cafe  Pedrocchi, 
86 

Paganini,  generosity  to  Mrs.  A.  J.  J. 
Sala,  i.  30  ;  story  respecting  his  sin- 
gle-string concerts,  28,  29 

Paget,  Lord  Alfred,  i.  ir,  345 

Palmerston,  Viscount,  and  the  lines  on 
the  death  of  his  wife,  i.  20 

Palmerston,  Viscount,  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, speech  on  the  Don  Pacifico 
question,  i.  223 

Panorama  of  London  at  the  Colos- 
seum, i.  67 

Panton,  Colonel,  i.  336 

Paolo,  Fra,  assassination  of,  ii.  94 

"  Papal  Aggression,"  i.  214,  215 

Paper  duty.  The,  i.  319.  322 

Paris:  author's  school  days  at  the 
Pension  He'non,  i.  106-113  ;  the  The- 
atre Comte,  107,  108 ;  a  concert  at 
the  Salon  Frascati  given  by  author's 
mother,  108,  109  ;  ta.x  on  receipts  at 
theatres,  109  ;  Lady  Harriet  D'Orsay 
andher  ringlet.  Ill ;  rumours  of  war 
with  England,  112,  113;  disturb- 
ances outside  the  British  Embassy, 
113  ;  after  the  Revolution  of  1848, 
179,  180,  211,  212  ;  Louis  Napoleon's 
coup  d'etat,  254  ;  the  Rue  aux  Feves 


and  the  "  Lapin  Blanc,"  255  ;  Inter- 
national Exhibition  of  1867,  ii.  106- 
113  ;  visit  of  Sultan  Abdul  Aziz,  114- 
117  ;  Berezowski's  attempt  on  the 
Tsar's  life,  117  ;  condition  on  the  eve 
of  the  war  with  Prussia,  155-158  ; 
spy  mania,  168  el  seq.  ;  Revolution 
of  4th  September,  178  ;  International 
Exhibition  of  1878,  306 

"  Paris  herself  Again,"  ii.  306 

Parkinson,  Joseph  Charles,  i.  350,  367  ; 
ii.  122,  168,  306 

Parr,  Dr.,  and  his  "private  slaughter 
houses,"  i.  102 

Parry,  John,  i.  96 

Parry,  Serjeant,  ii.  199,  200 

Paten,  Miss,  i.  129 

Patti,  Madame  Adelina,  ii.  260,  415 

Pavilion,  The,  Brighton,  and  the  royal 
kitchens,  i.  11 

Pearce,  Mr.,  correspondent  at  Con- 
stantinople of  the  Daily  iVews,  ii.  274 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  his  death,  character, 
and  the  respect  of  the  people  for 
him,  i.  222-224  ;  and  the  title  of  the 
Conservative  Magazine^  224,  225 

Pemberton,  "Kit,"  war  correspon- 
dent, ii.  152,  153 

"  Penny    Dreadfuls,"    their   owner,  i. 

1-73.  174 

"  Penny  papers,"  prejudice  against,  i. 
321,  332,  333 

Penny  postage  system,  i.  122,  123 

Periodicals  edited  by  Mr.  Gilbert  a 
Beckett,  i.  94 

Perry,  Mr.,  Consul-General  at  Venice, 
ii.  66,  67 

Pcrsano,  Admiral,  and  the  Italian  de- 
feat at  Lissa,  ii,  81,  82 

Perugia,  ii.  99 

"  Pestalozzian  "  system,  The,  i.  134 

Peter  the  Great,  apocryphal  will  of,  ii. 

254 
Petticoat     Lane,    drawings    by     Mr. 

Keeley    Halswelle    of  scenes  in,  i. 

268,  269 
Phelps,  Samuel,  i.  190 
Phillips,  Sir  Benjamin,  his  kindness  to 

Shirley  Brooks,  ii.  247-249 


n^ 


INDEX 


Phillips,  Henry,  basso  in  Maid  of  A  r- 
tois,  i.  49 

Phillips,  Watts,  author  of  the  Dead 
Heart,  i.  172  ;  pupil  of  George  Cruik- 
shank,  172  ;  ii.  134  ;  varied  gifts  and 
character,  134-136;  and  the  "Claim- 
ant," 207,  208 

'•  Phiz  "  {see  Browne,  Hablot  K. ) 

"  Pickwick,"  excitement  created  by,  i. 

74 
"  Pic-nic  Papers,  The,"  i.  144 
Pigott  and  his  confession  at  Mr.  La- 

bouchere's.  ii.  350-353 
Pions  in  French  schools,  i.  106,  107 
Pitt,  William,  and  Nerot's    Hotel,  i. 

53 

Plantulli,  M.,  Gas'ihaXdi's  aide-de-camp, 
ii.  84,  85 

Planche'  as  "  stock-author,"  i.  93 

Poets,  modern,  their  comparative 
merits,  ii.  3 

Pole,  Lady,  and  Mrs.  A.  J.  J.  Sala,  i. 
22 

Pompeii,  ii.  104 

Pond,  Mr.  Richard  Radcliffe,  adver- 
tisement manager  of  the  Conserva- 
tive Magazine,  i.  225  ;  ii.  137 

Portch,  Mr.  Julian,  i.  323 

Porter,  General  Horace,  ii.  336 

Post-houses  in  Russia,  ii.  263 

Poverty  as  a  school  for  compassion,  i. 
204-209 

Power,  Miss,  and  Tetnple  Bar,  i,  358 

Power,  Harold,  i.  51 

Power,  Tyrone,  i.  51,  98 

Princess's  Theatre,  i.  57,  93  ;  under 
the  lesseeship  of  Mr.  John  Mede.x 
Maddox,  124,  126-130  ;  cost  of  erec- 
tion, 125,  126  ;  the  ballerine,  142  ; 
author's  employment  there,  150,  151  ; 
engagements  of  Macready  and  Fan- 
ny Kemble,  150,  151  ;  performance 
of  the  A'ight  Dancers,  151 ;  of  Cherry 
and  Fairstar,  165  ;  production  of 
Billy  Taylor,  252,  253 ;  Corsican 
Brothers,  255-257 

Private  theatricals  at  Charles  Dick- 
ens's house,  i.  92  ;  at  Bolton  House 
Academy,  137 


Prussia  :  war  with  France,  ii.  152-167  ; 
Punch  and  Shirley  Brooks's  "  Our 
Flight  with  Punch,"  i.  165;  Birket- 
Foster's  travesty,  171 ;  ridicules  pro- 
posed balloon  expedition  to  the 
.\rctic  Regions,  239  ;  ridicules  the 
volunteers,  350 

Punchinello,  i.  264  ;  ii.  137 

Purchase  system  in  the  army,  ii.  198 

Puzzi,  Madame,  i.  41 

Quebec,  ii.  27-30 

Queen's  Bench  Prison,  i.  128 

Queen's  Theatre,  ii.  133,  134 

"Quite  Alone,"  ii.  18 

Qui.xote,  Don,  country  of,  ii.  55,  56 

Raglan,  Lord,  i.  39 

Railway  mania  of  1845,  i.  147,  148,  199, 
200 

Rainbow  Tavern,  i.  327 

Rainforth,  Miss,  in  Artaxerxes,  i.  59  ; 
in  the  Beggars  Opera,  60 

Ranelagh,  Lord,  ii.  83 

Rassam,  Mr,  Hormuzd,  ii.  282,  283 

Ravenscroft,  Mr.  Francis,  i.  99,  100 

Ravogli,  Giulia,  i.  44 

Reach,  Angus  Bethune,  and  the  Man 
in  the  Moon,  i.  163-165  ;  his  numer- 
ous  productions   and    energy,    166, 

167.  393 
Reade,  Mr.,  Consul  at  Tunis,  ii.  280, 

281 
Reade,  Charles,  i.  95 
Red  Cross  Ambulance  system  and  its 

promoter,  ii.  42 
"Red  Lion  "  Club,  i.  333 
Red  Sea  :  colour  of  water,  ii.  268 
Reed,  Mrs.  German,  i.  58 
Reeve,  John,  i.  368 
Reeves,  Mr.  Sims,  i.  317 
Reform  Club,  ii.  5 
Reichstadt,  Duke  of,  ii.  64 
Religious  toleration  at  Constantinople, 

instance  of,  ii.  289,  290 
Reunion  Club,  i.  262 
"  Reynard  the  Fo.x,"  i.  176 
Reynoldson,    "stock-author,"   at    the 

Princess's  Theatre,  i.  160,  161 


INDEX 


373 


Richmond  (Virginia),  ii.  308,  309 
Richmond,  Mr.  W.  B.,  ii.  305 
Rignold.  Mr.  George,  ii.  335,  343 
Rivers,  Lord,  ii.  130 
Roberts,  Mr.  Thomas,  ii.  129 
Rochefort,    M.    Henri,  at  the  trial  of 
Pierre  Bonaparte,   ii.   142,  144,  147, 
148 
"  Rock-scorpions,"  ii.  244 
Rome  :    railway   station  and   Custom 
House,   ii.  99 ;  Hotel  d'Angleterre, 
100  ;  differences  in  its  condition  in 
1866  and  1894,  loi,  102  ;  Colosseum, 
loi  ;  the  Pope  amongst  the  people, 
102 ;    currency,    102 ;     portraits    of 
Beatrice  Cenci,  103,  104  ;  evacuated 
by  the  French,  183  ;  entry  of  Italian 
troops    through   the    "hole   in   the 
wall,"   185;     departure   of    foreign 
legionaries,    189 ;     Hotel     d'Angle- 
terre,  190  ;  choosing   a   Provisional 
Government,  191  ;  the  plebdiscitum, 
191 ;  entry  of  General  La  Marmora 
and  papal  protests,  191,  192 
Romer,  Miss,  i.  59,   170 
Romer,  Frank,  i.   170 
Romer,  William,  i.  173 
Rosebery,   Lord,  i.  363  ;    ii.  303,  304, 

335 
Ross,  Sir  John,  i,  24,  25 
Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  i.  339 
Rothschild,  Mr.  Leopold  de,  ii.304 
Royal  Academy  of  Music  and  the  an- 
nual ball,  i.  76 
Rugeley  murder,  The,  and  the  Illus- 
trated Titiics^  i.  271 
Russell,     Lord   John,   caricatured    in 
Punch  as  Jack  Sheppard,  i.  171 ;  his 
"  Durham  Letter,"  214 
Russell,  John  .Scott,  i.  344,  345 
Russell,  Dr.  William  Howard,  i.  322, 
333;  ii.   II,  20,  34,  35.  39,  83.    154, 

243 
Russia  :  the  author's  visit,  i.  286-305  ; 
opening  letters  of  foreigners,  287  ; 
the  use  of  the  knout,  290,  291  ;  ob- 
literating paragraphs  in  newspapers, 
292,  293  ;  author's  second  expedi- 
tion, ii.  253  ;  climate  and  devices  to 


ensure  warmth,  259,  260 ;  sledge- 
travelling,  263  ;  post-houses,  263  ; 
paper  currency,  266  ;  former  regu- 
lations for  the  departure  of  foreign- 
ers, 352,  353  ;  murder  of  Alexander 
II.,  316;  coronation  of  Alexander 
III-.  325.  330-332;  change  in  mil- 
itary costumes,  326,  327  ;  liberality 
of  the  Government  towards  foreign 
representatives  of  the  press,  327 
Ryder,  John,  his  friendship  with  Ma- 
cready,  i.  157;  in  Clarissa  Harlcnuc, 
160 

Sacramento  City,  ii.  312 

Sadler's  Wells  Theatre  :  Mrs.  War- 
ner's Shakespearean  characters,  i. 
190 

St.  Albans,  Duchess  of,  at  Brighton,  i. 

24 
St.  George,  Miss  Julia,  i.  190 
Saint   Georges,    M.,    and    Les    Puits 

d' Amour,  i.  123 
St.  James's  Theatre  ;  site  and  cost  of 
building,    i.   53;   opening,   54;  per- 
formance of  Artaxerxes,  59-61 ;  per- 
formance   of   the    Beggar's   Opera, 
60  ;  burlesques,   64 ;    The   Rerolt  of 
the      Workhouse,    64,     65  ;     French 
operas.  65  ;  frequenters  of  the  green- 
room, 92-96 
St.  John,  Horace,  i.  331,  332 
St.  John,  James  Augustus,  i.  331 
St.  Martin's  Hall,  ii.  132,  133 
St.     Paul's    Cathedral :    thanksgiving 
service  on  the  Prince  of  Wales's  re- 
storation to  health,  ii.  205  ;  internal 
characteristics,  205,  206 
.St.  Petersburg  :  journey  from  Berlin, 
i.    285,    286 ;  opening  letters   at   the 
Post  Office,  287 ;  Hotel  Heyde,  288, 
289,    291 ;   infliction  of   punishment 
with  the  knout,  290,  291  ;  obliterat- 
ing    newspaper    paragraphs,    392, 
393 ;    the    Bolschoi    Morskaia,   393 ; 
the  Maison  Martius,    293-297 ;  ball 
at      the      Russian      Legation,    298, 
299 ;     the    Russian     Boyard,      301  ; 
glimpses  of  Russian  character,  302, 


J/ 4 


J/ 


INDEX 


303  ;  a  professor  of  natural  history, 
303 ;  water  parties  on  the  Neva, 
305  ;  author's  second  expedition,  ii. 
253-267  ;  a  singular  specimen  of  an 
interpreter,  256-259  ;  an  American 
lady's  opinion  of  the  city,  259;  mur- 
der of  Alexander  II.,  316;  a  tasty 
dish  at  a  tad/e  d'hote,  318 

St.  Sauveur,  General  de,  interview 
with  English  newspaper  correspond- 
ents, ii.  163,  164 

St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  Opening  of,  ii. 
205 

Sala,  Cardinal,  i.  2 

Sala,  Count,  ii.  255 

Sala,  or  Salla,  Mile.,  ii.  318,  319 

Sala,  Albert,  i.  4,  75,  99,  131,  218 

Sala,  Miss  Augusta,  author's  sister,  i. 
3,  13.  IS.  17.  51.  57.  66,  75,  97,  99, 
loi,  130,  218,  409 

Sala,  Augustus  John' James,  author's 
father,  i.  i ;  his  declining  fortunes, 
32,  23  ;   death,  23 

Sala,  Madame  A.  J.  J.,  author's  moth- 
er, i.  3  ;  parentage  and  school  days, 
4-6  ;  her  study  of  English  literature, 
6;  "At  Homes"  at  Brighton,  20, 
21  ;  portrait,  21 ;  first  appearance 
at  Covcnt  Garden  Theatre,  22 ; 
pupil  of  Velluti,  23  ;  adopts  the 
musical  profession,  23 ;  royal  pat- 
ronage, 23  ;  some  of  her  pupils, 
36 ;  an  unexpected  meeting  with 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  38 ;  some 
of  her  London  friends,  41-52 ;  as 
singer  and  actress  at  St.  James's 
Theatre,  53,  59 ;  in  Tom  Thumb, 
61  ;  in  Guy  IMatmerhig,  61  ;  danc- 
ing the  "  Cachucha,"  62;  per- 
forms at  the  Colosseum,  68  ;  in  the 
Love  Chase,  96  ;  illness,  97  ;  date  of 
death  and  place  of  interment,  97; 
benefit  at  the  Haymarket  Theatre, 
98  ;  partiality  for  the  lash  in  domes- 
tic discipline,  102  ;  gives  a  concert 
at  the  Salon  Frascati,  Paris,  108, 
109  ;  at  the  Theatre  Royal,  Dover, 
114,  118-120;  at  the  Princess's  Thea- 
tre,  124  ;  kindness   to  the  ballerine. 


142  ;  resumes  the  teaching  of  sing- 
ing, 153 ;  returns  to  Brighton,  163  ; 
her  son,  Charles  Kerrison,  on  re- 
tiring from  the  stage,  resides  with 
her,  258 ;  gives  a  concert  in  Lon- 
don, 317 

Sala,  Charles  Kerrison,  i.  4,  97,  99, 
loi,  118,  131  ;  engagement  at  the 
Princess's  Theatre,  152,  153-157, 
219  ;  writes  a  pantomime  in  conjunc- 
tion with  his  brother  and  Mr.  George 
Ellis,  252  ;  in  the  Corsicari  Brothers^ 
256 ;  at  the  Surrey  Theatre,  256, 
257  ;  retirement  from  the  stage  and 
death,  258 

Sala,  Claudio  Sebastiano,  author's 
grandfather,  i.  I,  2 

Sala,  Miss  Eliza,  afterwards  Mrs.  Crel- 
lin,  i.  103.  143,  144,  145,  218 

Sala,  Frederick,  i.  3,  47 ;  a  student  at 
the  Royal  Academy  of  Music,  76  ; 
costume,  76  ;  musical  training  in 
Paris,  77,  78,  98,  99;  settles  at  High 
Wycombe,  131,  261 

Sala,  George  Augustus  :  birthplace,  i. 
I  ;  parentage  and  descent,  1-7  ;  his 
study  of  great  theologians,  6  ;  god- 
father and  godmothers,  6 ;  early 
cultivation  of  memory,  8  ;  reminis- 
cences of  North  Audley  Street,  9  ; 
sent  to  Edgware,  9 ;  blindness,  10, 
15  ;  partial  restoration  of  sight,  15; 
learning  to  read  and  write,  15,  16; 
his  retentive  memory,  17,  48,  49 ; 
recollections  of  childhood,  at  Brigh- 
ton, 19-30 ;  death  of  his  father,  22, 
23  ;  politics,  23  ;  early  recollections 
of  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts,  24 ; 
"lent  out"  at  Brighton,  26;  at 
Cricklewood,  31-33 ;  dislike  of  the 
pianoforte,  35  ;  a  reminiscence  of 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  38;  at 
Gore  House  in  childliood,  44-46; 
recollections  of  performances  at 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,  48-50  ;  in  Re- 
gent Street,  51  ;  plays  as  "  Mr. 
William  Watling "  at  St.  James's 
Theatre,  56 ;  places  of  residence 
after  marriage,  57  ;  aversion  to  sing- 


INDEX 


375 


ing  and  reciting,  60  ;  models  a  scene 
in  L' Ambassudrice,  b6;  first  acquaint- 
ance with  Dickens  and  his  works, 
74i  75  ;  early  association  with  eldest 
brother,  77-79  ;  at  school  in  Paris, 
77.78;  "playing  at  Dickens,"  80; 
early  studies  in  literature,  87 ;  re- 
ceives lessons  in  public  speaking 
from  Lord  Brougham,  87  ;  writes  a 
tragedy  in  boyhood,  81 ;  familiarity 
with  the  green-room,  88-96  ;  a  pall- 
bearer at  George  Cruikshanks  fun- 
eral, 95  ;  recollections  of  his  moth- 
er's benefit  at  the  Haymarket  Thea- 
tre, 98  ;  recollections  of  household 
servants,  97  ;  mistaken  for  his  broth- 
ers, 118  ;  early  education,  100-102  ; 
liking  for  Greek,  loi ;  aversion  to 
the  discipline  of  English  schools, 
102 ;  experiences  under  corporal 
punishment,  102  ;  nervous  illness, 
103  ;  sent  to  a  school  in  Paris,  104  ; 
schoolboy  life  in  Paris,  106-113  ; 
some  of  his  school-fellows,  108 ; 
evenings  at  the  apartments  of  Lady 
Harriet  D'Orsay,  no,  in;  returns 
to  England,  113,  114  ;  writes  a  novel 
at  the  age  of  thirteen,  115  ;  resi- 
dence at  Dover,  114-120 ;  visit  to 
Heme  Bay  and  return  to  London, 
121  ;  behind  the  scenes  at  the  Prin- 
cess's Theatre,  127  ;  lack  of  scholas- 
tic teaching,  132  ;  education  and  rec- 
reations at  Bolton  House  School, 
133-141  ;  school  examination,  and 
dramatic  performance  at  Hanover 
Square  Rooms,  138-141  ;  dislike  for 
the  German  language,  141  ;  hero- 
worship  of  Napoleon,  141  ;  works  at 
a  miniature  painter's,  142  ;  making 
up  tradesmen's  books,  143,  147 ; 
drawing  railway  plans,  147,  148 ; 
painting  for  George  Wieland,  148  ; 
assistant  to  W.  R.  Beverly  and  ]. 
M.  Maddox,  149  ;  writes  the  libretto 
of  The  Bride  of  Castelnuovo,  151  ; 
translates  Une  Chambre  a  deux  Lits, 
161  ;  helps  \V.  Beverly  at  the  Ly- 
ceum, 162  ;  poverty,  163  ;    commis- 


sioned by  Albert  Smith  to  draw  for 
the  Ma7i  in  the  Moon,  163  ;  in  the 
coffee-room  of  the  Cafe  de  I'Europe. 
168,  169;  Illustrates  a  "Bowl  of 
Punch,"  170,  171  ;  advice  given  to 
him  by  George  Cruikshank,  172  ; 
employed  by  Mr.  Calvert  to  illus- 
trate "  Penny  Dreadfuls,"  173,  174  ; 
illustrates  Bunn's  "Word  with 
Punch,"  176;  draws  for  the  Lady's 
Newspaper,  176  ;  collecting  crazes, 
176,  177  ;  learns  to  etch,  177,  178  ; 
first  appearance  in  print,  178 ;  at 
the  performance  of  Monte  Crista, 
180,  181  ;  contributes  to  Chat,  and 
is  appointed  editor,  181,  182;  sworn 
a  special  constable,  182  ;  his  "Aus- 
tralian Nights'  Entertainment  "  and 
"  Natural  History  of  Beggars,"  188  ; 
dramatic  criticism,  189  ;  recollec- 
tions of  Pierce  Egan  the  Elder,  202- 
204  ;  poverty  again,  204-209  ;  salary 
as  editor  of  Chat,  209 ;  sells  a 
quack  medicine,  209,  210  ;  a  trip  to 
Paris,  211-212 ;  publishes  "Hail, 
Rain,  Steam  and  Speed,"  212; 
friendship  with  the  Abercorn  family, 
213;  a  "No  Popery"  commission 
from  Messrs.  Ackermann,  214  :  "  the 
Great  Exhibition  wot  is  to  be,"  216, 
217  ;  receives  a  legacy,  218  ;  angling 
in  the  Upper  Thames,  219,  220 ;  in 
Buckingham  Street,  220;  starts  the 
Conservative  Alagazitie,  222  226  ; 
political  convictions  with  regard  to 
France,  225  ;  dislike  of  mountainoui 
scenery,  229 ;  gambling  adventure 
with  Mr.  "  Hopeful  "and  Dr.  .Strauss 
at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  227-234 ;  pre- 
pares a  new  comic  panorama  of  the 
Great  F^xhibition,  234,  246;  visits 
Paris  with  Dr.  Strauss,  234 ;  trip  to 
Lancashire  and  the  Isle  of  Man,  234, 
235  ;  buys  a  share  in  a  Ijalloon,  238  ; 
writes  a  lecture  for  Lieutenant  Gale, 
239;  in  the  money-taker's  Ijox  at 
the  balloon-meeting  at  Hull,  241, 
242  ;  i)aints  a  panorama  for  "  Soy- 
cr's  Symposium,"  243,  244  ;  connec- 


\^6 


INDEX 


tion  with    Soyer,    244,   245 ;    at  the 
Great  Exhibition,  245  ;  in  a  balloon 
accident,    246,    247 ;    letter    to    the 
Times  on  balloon  ascents,  247,  248  ; 
decides  to  give  up  art  and  to  qual- 
ify himself  for  journalism,  248,  249  ; 
friendship  with    Mr.    Lumley,    249; 
first  article  in  Household  Words  and 
his  long  connection  with  that  per- 
iodical,   251 ;      articled    to    an    en- 
graver, 252  ;    writes  in  conjunction 
with  his  brother  and  Mr.   G.  Ellis, 
a  pantomime  for  the  Princess's  The- 
atre, 252  ;   visits    Paris   on   the   day 
of  Louis  Napoleon's  coup  d'etat,  253- 
25s  ;  production  of  his  version  of  the 
Frlres  Corses  at  the  Surrey  Theatre, 
255,    256 ;     executes    a    panoramic 
view  of  the  funeral  procession  of  the 
Duke   of  Wellington,   259,  260 ;    at 
the    Duke's    funeral,    260;    trip    to 
Paris,    260;    lotus-eating,    259-281; 
his  lecture  on  the  French  coup  d'etat, 
262;  member  of  the  Reunion  Club, 
262  ;  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Sav- 
age  Club,    263 ;  writes   for   Punchi- 
nello, 264  ;  one  of  the  originators  of 
__the  Leave  Us  Alone  Club,  266,  267  ; 
reflections    on    the    interference    of 
social  reformers,  267  ;  a  visit  to  Pet- 
ticoat Lane  with  Mr,  Keeley  Hals- 
welle,   267,   268  ;  first  acquaintance 
with  Edmund  Yates,  269,  270;  writes 
for  the  Illustrated  Times,  269,  270  ; 
Hannay's  epigram  on  "  S.  and  B.," 
274 ;  on  hard  work,    278 ;  becomes 
editor  of  Lotidon,  279;  project  for  a 
large   English    hotel,    280,   281 ;    in 
Paris    again    (1856),    282 ;    commis- 
sioned by  Dickens  to  visit  St.  Peters- 
burg and  Moscow,  and  to  write  ar- 
ticles  for   Household    IVords  on  his 
experiences,  283  ;  his  travelling  com- 
panion to  Berlin,  283,  284;  quarters 
in  St.   Petersburg,  288,  289,  291  ;  at 
Brussels,    writing    his     articles    on 
Russia  for   Household    Words,   305, 
306 ;  a   quarrel   with    Dickens,    309, 
310,    311  ;    the    number  of  articles 


written   for   Household  Words,  310 ; 
"  Haddington  Peerage,"  and  "  How 
I  Tamed  Mrs.   Cruiser,"  313,  314; 
first  visit  to  the  offices  of  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  315,  316  ;  writes  for  Wel- 
come  Guest,  317,  326  ;  visit  to  Paris, 
317 ;  reconciliation  with  Dickens  and 
contributions  to  All  the  Year  Rojind, 
322;    publishes    "A  Journey    Due 
North,"   322,    323  ;  a   gambling  ad- 
venture    at     Homburg,     323,    324 ; 
"Make  Your  Game,"  and  "Twice 
Round  the  Clock,"  326,  327;  a  din- 
ner  at  Edmund   Yates's,   328,  329  ; 
early  work  on  the  Daily  Telegraph, 
329,    330 ;    politics,   330 ;    mode    of 
working,   331,   332;  adventure  in  a 
night     house,     335-337 ;    marriage, 
338  ;  domestic  cookery,  341,  342  ;  a 
trip  on  the  Great  Eastern,  344-350 ; 
volunteer    review,    350-354;    "Ho- 
garth Papers  "  in  Cornhill  Magazine, 
354,    355,   356,    358;    starts    Temple 
Bar    Magazine,    358  ;    his    writings 
criticised  in   the    Saturday  Review, 
360;    "The   Seven   Sons  of  Mam- 
mon,"    "Gaslight    and    Daylight," 
"  Looking  at  Life,"  "Lady  Chester- 
field's   Letters   to    her    Daughter," 
361  ;  income,    364-366 ;  remarks   on 
his  style,  363,  364 ;  devotes  himself 
entirely  to  journalism,  365,  366 ;  in- 
cident at  Leeds,  365  ;  long  connec- 
tion with  the  Daily  Telegraph,  365  ; 
residence  at  Upton  Court,  369-373  ; 
at  the  Prince  Consort's  funeral,  374 ; 
at  the   International    Exhibition  of 
1862,  375,  376;  addresses  a  meeting 
in  the  Chapter  House,  Westminster, 
376-378  ;  elected  a  member  of  the 
Reform  Club,  ii.  5  ;  at  the  wedding 
of  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales, 
7-16 ;     special      correspondent     for 
Daily  Telegraph  in  America  during 
the  war,  18-34;  a  trip   to   Barbary, 
36,  39-44  ;  interview  with  Napoleon 
III.,   41;  at    Homburg    again,    44; 
Continental  journey,  45-47  ;  travels 
in  Spain,  47-60;  war  correspondent 


INDEX 


377 


in  Italy,  66  ct  seq.  ;  interview  with 
Garibaldi,  71  ;  in  Northern  Italy, 
86,  87  ;  at  Ferrara,  87-89,  90 ;  in 
Venice,  92-98  ;  experiences  in  Rome 
in  1866,  99-105  ;  in  Paris  during  the 
Exhibition  of  1S67,  106-113;  resi- 
dence at  Putney,  122  ;  introduction 
to  iVfr.  Henry  Labouchere,  132 ; 
"Breakfast  in  Bed,"  136;  at  Hom- 
burg  again,  137;  Wat  Tyler^  137- 
139  ;  at  the  trial  of  Pierre  Bonaparte, 
i4o-i5rf  correspondent  in  the  war 
of  1870,  152-167  ;  in  Paris  on  the  eve 
of  the  war,  155-157 ;  at  Metz,  158- 
167  ;  arrested  in  Paris  as  a  spy,  171- 
178 ;  leaves  Paris  for  Geneva,  180- 
182  ;  enters  Rome  with  Italian  army, 
185  ;  recalled  to  England,  192  ;  on 
the  ethics  of  the  occupation  of 
Rome,  193,  193,  194  ;  plaintiff  in  a 
libel  action,  196-202  ;  in  Berlin,  202- 
204  ;  at  the  funeral  of  Napoleon  III., 
209,  210  ;  illness,  210-215  ;  at  Thomas 
Castro's  trial  for  perjury,  216-221  ;  a 
second  visit  to  Spain,  222-244 ;  'n  ^ 
train  attacked  by  Carlists,  238-240 ; 
visits  Gibraltar,  243,  244  ;  a  second 
visit  to  Algeria,  244 ;  advocates  the 
demolition  of  Temple  Bar,  250-252 ; 
another  expedition  to  Russia,  253- 
267 ;  at  St.  Petersburg,  254-259 ; 
at  Moscow,  259  ;  at  Warsaw,  260- 
262 ;  travelling  to  Odessa,  262-266  ; 
experiences  in  Constantinople,  268- 
289 ;  visit  to  Athens,  291-293 ;  at 
Nice  and  Monte  Carlo,  293-296  ;  in 
Mecklenburgh  Square,  299-307;  sec- 
ond visit  to  United  States,  308-315  ; 
mission  to  St.  Petersburg  on  the 
murder  of  the  Tsar,  316-324  ;  at  the 
coronation  of  Alexander  III.  at  Mos- 
cow, 325-332 ;  lecturing  tour  in  the 
United  States,  333-340;  in  Australia 
and  New  Zealand,  342-346  ;  at  Hon- 
olulu, 340,  341  ;  his  wife's  death, 
347.  348  ;  visit  to  India  and  return  to 
England,  349,  350  ;  witness  to  Pigott's 
confession  at  Mr.  Labouchere's,  350- 
353  ;  second  marriage,  354 


Sala,  Henrietta,  i.  3 

-Sala,  Miss  Sophia,  i.  103,  144,  145, 
211,  218 

Salisbury,  Marquis  of,  Ambassador- 
Extraordinary  at  Constantinople,  ii. 

279 

Salt  Lake  City,  ii.  312 

San  Francisco  :  Palace  Hotel  and  hos- 
pitality, ii.  312 ;  streets,  Chinese 
restaurant  and  theatres,  313,  314  ; 
the  Neijus  Letter  and  its  editor,  314  ; 
Golden  Gates,  315  ;  author's  lectur- 
ing visit,  340 

Sansbury,  Mr. .leader  of  orchestra  at 
St.  James's  Theatre,  i,  6i 

Saturday  Review  on  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph, i.  360  :  its  criticisms  on  the 
author's  writings,  360 

Saumarez,  Mr.  Do,  ii.  177 

Savage  Club,  first  meeting  place,  i. 
263,  316 

Schiller,  Mr.  Carl,  miniature  painter, 
i.  142,  143,  166 ;  ii.  247 

Schuyler,  Eugene,  ii.  275,  276,  290, 
337 

Scots  Fusiliers  at  Brighton,  and  the 
hospitahty  of  Mrs.  A.J.  J.  Sfila,  i. 
19,  20 

Scott,  — ,  artist,  of  Brighton,  i.  100 

Scott,  Mr.  Clement,  i.  go,  364.  367, 
note 

Scott,  Sir  Gilbert,  i.  379 

Scribe,  M. ,  and  Les  Putts  d' Amoin\  i. 
123 

Scudamore,  Frank  Ives,  ii.  277,  278 

"Seven  Sons  of  Mammon,  The,"  i. 
361  ;  ii.  3 

Seville,  ii.  59,  241 

Seymour,  Hon.  Mr.,  i.  298 

Shakespeare  said  to  have  been  the 
original  ghost  in  Hamlet,  i.  118,  119  ; 
his  knowledge  of  Northern   Italy,  ii. 

87 
Sheehan,  John,  i.  125 
Shepherd,  Mr.  Richard,  i.  258 
Sheridan,  General  "  Phil,"  ii.  337 
Sheridan,  Mrs.   Thomas,    the  daugh- 
ters of,  i.  25 
Sherman,  General,  ii.  337 


378 


INDEX 


ShirrefF,  Miss,  i.  59 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  as  Queen  Katliarine,  i. 

45 

Simon,  Henrietta  Catherina  Floren- 
tina  (see  Sala,  Mrs,  A.  J.  J.) 

Simpson,  Mr.,  lessee  of  Cremone  Gar- 
dens, i.  58 

Simpson,  Mr.,  of  the  Illustrated  Lon- 
don News  ^  ii.  161,  164 

Simpson's  Cigar  Divan,  i.  220 

Sims,  Mr.  G.  R.,  his  remuneration  as 
a  dramatist,  i.  94 

Sledge  travelling  in  Russia,  ii.  262- 
266 

Smart,  Hawley,  ii.  29 

Smith,  Albert,  i.  129 ;  and  the  Man  in 
the  Moon,  163,  165;  at  home,  164; 
character,  164,  165  ;  gives  author  a 
commission  for  the  Man  in  the  Moon, 
165,  199  ;  some  of  his  books,  170;  in 
a  balloon  accident,  247;  on  "The 
Great  Hotel  Question,"  280 

Smith,  Arthur,  i.  318 

Smith,  Mr.  George,  i.  356,  357 

Soane,  George,  and  the  Night  Danc- 
ers, i.  151 

Society :  customs  at  the  beginning  of 
the  century  and  now,  i.  20,  21  ; 
ladies'  toilettes,  45  ;  costumes  of 
dandies,  46,  76,  77 

Solitary  cell.  The,  in  French  schools, 
i.  106 

Somerset,  Duchess  of  (formerly  Lady 
Seymour),  i.  25 

Somerset,  Lord  Fitzroy  (see  Raglan, 
Lord) 

Songs,  Old,  i.  35,  47 

Sotheby,   T.    H.,   and    Temple  Bar,  i. 

358    " 
Sothern,      Edward    Askew,     ii.     136, 

315 

Soyer,  Alexis,  i.  46 ;  his  restaurant  at 
Gore  House,  243 ;  ii.  35 

"  Soyer's  Symposium,"  i.  244-246 

Spain:  Revolution,  ii.  47  ;  the  author's 
travels,  47-60;  railways,  53,  54  I  au- 
thor's second  visit,  221,  244 

Spandau,  Fortress  of,  and  its  French 
prisoners  of  war,  ii.  203,  204 


Spencer,  Lord,  and  the  jacket  called 

by  his  name,  i.  191 
Spy    mania   in    Metz,    ii.     161-164 :  '» 

Paris,  168  ct  scq. 
"Stags,"  i.  173 
Stamboul,  view  from  the  Bosphorus  of, 

ii.  268,  269 
Standard  Theatre,  i.  162 
Stanhope,  Countess,  i.  98 
.Stanley,  Miss,  at  St.  James's  Tlieatre, 

i.  60 
State  carriage,   The,   and  its  cost,   ii. 

125 
Steele,  Dr.   |.  P.,  ii.  211-213 
Stettin,  i.  286 
Stirling,  Mrs.,  i.  64,  221 
"Stock-authors,"  i.  93,  94,  160,  161 
Stone,  Mr.,  i.  97 
Strachan,  Sir  Richard,  lampooned  in 

an  epigram,  ii.  84 
Strand  Music  Hall,  ii.  137 
Strand  Theatre,  i.  160,  192 
Strasburg,  ii.  43 
Stiauss,  Dr.  Gustave  Liidwig  Moritz, 

and  the  Charter  House,  i.   125,  126  ; 

his  article  in  the  Cofiservative  Maga- 
zine,  225 ;    accompanies   author   to 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  227,  234 
Strickland,  —  (Van     Burn),      at      St. 

James's  Theatre,  i.  60 
Sultan  Mahmoud,  his  importation  of 

foreign  musicians  and   anecdote  of 

his  musical  tastes,  i.  42,  43 
Sunday  Times,  i.  305,  331 
Sunday  trading.   Lord    Robert  Gros- 

vcnor's  Bill  for  the  suppression  of, 

i.  265 
Surrey  Theatre :    appearance    of    Ir.a 

Aldridge,   negro  tragedian,    i.   189; 

production  of  Tlie  Corsicans,  258 
Sutherland,  Duchess  of,  i.  98 ;  ii.  79 
Sutherland,    Duke  of,   and  the    Great 

Eastern  accident,  i.  345,  347  ;  ii.  306, 

307 
Swearing  in  polite  society,  i.  33 
Swinburne,   Mr.  Algernon  Charles,  ii. 

3 

Sydney,  author's  lecturing  visit  to,  ii. 

344 


INDEX 


379 


Tables  d'hote  and  English  tourists,   ii. 
io6,  107 

'I'aine,  Henri,  ii.  log 

Talmage,  Rev.  De  Witt,  ii,  337 

Tamlmrini,  i.  43  ;  at  a  concert  in  Paris, 
no.  113 

Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  and  his  drama 
Philip  von  Artevelde,  i.  158 

Taylor,  Tom,  ii.  245,  246 

Taylor,  Miss  (afterwards  Mrs.  Walter 
Lacy),  i.  98 

Temple  Bar  :  its  demolition  advocated 
in  the  Daily  Telegraph,  ii.  250;  re- 
moval to  Theobald's  Park,  252  ; 
sculpture  memorial  and  commemo- 
rative medal,  252,  253 

Temple  Bar  Magazine  and  John  Shee- 
han,  i.  129;  its  commencement,  358 

Templeton,  tenor  in  Maid  of  Artois,  i. 
49 ;  at  the  Princess's  Theatre,  129 

Tennant,  Sir  Emerson,  opinion  of  Sir 
Hudson  Lowe,  ii.  281 

Tennyson,  Lord,  and  the  lines, 
"Form,  form,  riflemen,  form,"  etc., 

'■  352 

Ternan,  Mrs.,  i.  190 

Thackeray,  his  "  Catherine  :  a  Story," 
i.  85  ;  charged  in  Ireland  with  libel- 
ling Miss  Catherine  Hayes,  86,  147, 
y^T-  339.  357 ;  and  the  autograph 
book  at  New  Orleans,  ii.  310 

The'atre  Comte,  i.  107,  loS 

Theatricals,  private,  at  Charles  Dick- 
ens's house,  i.  92  ;  at  Bolton  House 
Academy,  137 

Thie'blin,  Nicholas,  ii.  162 

Thillon,  Madame  Anna,  at  the  Prin- 
cess's Theatre,  i.  66,  129 

Thomas,  Mr.  W.  Moy,  i.  90 

Thompson,  Mr.  Alfred,  of  the  Daily 
Xews,  ii.  328 

'Ihornton,  Sir  Edward,  ii.  308 

Thorwaldsen  Museum,  i.  285 

Thrale,  Mrs.  Hester,  mother  of  Lady 
Keith,  i.  7  ;  home  at  Southwark,  36  ; 
compared  with  Countess  Walde- 
grave,  87 

Tichborne  Case,  The,  ii.  130, 131,  206- 
208,  216-219 


Tierney,  Sir  Matthew,  i.  8 
Times,  The,  authors  letter  on  balloon- 
ing,   i.    247,    248  ;    on   the  Sunday 
Closing   Bill,    265  ;    review  of    "  A 
Journey  Due  North,"  325 

Tinsley,  Edward,  i.  353,  354 

Tobacco  at  public  dinners,  i.  334  ;  ii.  6 

Toilette  of  ladies,  i.  45 

Toledo,  ii.  49 

Tomlins,  Mr.  Frederick  Guest,  i.  187 

Toole,    Mr.   John   Lawrence,  ii.   127, 
128,  136;  in  Wat  Tyler,  138 

Toulon  :  arrival  of  Sultan  Abdul  Aziz 
on  his  way  to  Paris,  ii.  114 

Trench,  Archbishop,  i.  377 

Train,  George  Francis,  ii.  18,  19 

Train,  The,  started  by  Edmund  Yates 
and  others,  i.  278,  284 

"  Trainband  Society,"  The,  i.  284 

Trieste,  ii.  63,  65 

Tupper,  Martin  Farquhar,  lines  attri- 
buted to  him,  i.  352 

Turner's  pictures  of  Venice,  ii.  65 

Twain,  Mark,  ii.  339 

"  Twice  Round  the  Clock,"  i.  326,  327 

Uhlans,  Prussian,  ii.  179 

Unetellc,  Madame  la  Baronne,  ii.  296, 

297 
Uniform  of  Household  Brigade,  i.  34 
Upton  Court,  i.  369-373 

Valentine,  Henry,  his  stories  of  act- 
ors, i.  186 

Vaughan,  Cardinal,  i.  215  ;  ii.  190 

Velluti,  i.  23 

Venice  :  encounter  between  a  rat  and 
a  crab,  ii.  62,  63 ;  as  represented  by 
various  artists,  65  ;  the  state  of  siege, 
84,  85;  Caflfe  Florian,  86;  dialect, 
93 ;  on  the  eve  of  the  Austrian 
evacuation,  92,  93 ;  transference  to 
France  and  entry  of  Italian  troops, 
93p  94  ;  result  of  the  plcbiscitum,  95  ; 
Fenice  Theatre,  95,  96 ;  entry  of 
Victor  Emmanuel,  97,  98  ;  character 
of  the  people,  94  ;  illumination  ot 
St.  Mark's  Place,  98  ;  and  Austrian 
trade,  189 


;8o 


INDEX 


Venta  de  Cardenas,  ii.  55-57 

Verona,  ii.  67;  tomb  of  Juliet,  87 

Vestris,  Madame,  in  Marriaj^c  of  Fi- 
garo^ i.  22  ;  at  the  Princess's.  158  ;  at 
the  Lyceum,  162 

Veztprt',  Madame  Jenny,  and  St. 
James's  Theatre,  i.  58 

Vicenza,  ii.  67 

Victoria,  Queen,  and  Madame  A.  J.  J. 
Sala's  concerts,  i.  23;  and  Mrs. 
Sala's  benefit  at  the  Haymarket 
Theatre,  98 ;  -reviewing  the  volun- 
teers, 350-354 ;  at  the  Prince  of 
Wales's  wedding,  ii.  15  ;  state  car- 
riage, 125 ;  opens  St.  Thomas's 
Hospital,  205 

Vienna,  ii.  63 

Villemessant,  M.,  ii.  109 

Villiers,  Hon.  Mrs.  Georgina,  one  of 
the  author's  godmothers,  i.  6 

Vizetelly,  Henry,  i.  171  ;  his  connec- 
tion with  the  Illustrated  Times.  270  ; 
goes  to  Homburg  with  the  author, 

323.  324 

Vizetelly,  James,  i.  171 

Volunteers :  rise  and  growth  of  the 
movement,  i.  350  ;  review  in  Hyde 
Park,  350-354  ;  ridicule  of  Punch, 
350  ;  presentation  to  the  Queen  at 
Buckingham  Palace,  354 

Waddy,  Q.  C,  Mr.,  i.  365 

Wagga  -  Wagga,  author's  lecturing 
visit  to,  ii.  345 

Waldegrave,  Countess,  i.  63,  73,  74 

Wales,  Prince  of,  and  smoking  at  pub- 
lic dinners,  ii.  6  ;  his  wedding,  7-15  ; 
his  illness  and  recovery,  205,  206  ; 
at  Gibraltar,  243  ;  presentation  of 
the  author,  304  ;  at  the  funeral  of 
Alexander  II.,  323 

Walker,  Dr.,  "Graveyard  Walker," 
i.  244  and  note 

Walkinshaw,  Misses,  i.  166  ;  ii.  247 

Wallack,  Henry,  lessee  of  Theatre 
Royal,  Dover,  i.  115 

Wallack,  James,  i.  115 

Wallack,  Lester,  i.  115 

Waller,  Sir  Wathen,  i.  11 


Walpole,  Horace,  and  his  lap-dog,  ii. 

61 
War  correspondent,  the  first,  ii.  83 
Ward,  Mrs.,  of  St.  Petersburg,  i.  293, 

297,  298,  303,  316 
Ward,  Miss    Genevieve,  i.    284,    298, 

303,  317  ;  ii.  342,  346,  348,  349 
Ward,  Samuel,  ii.  32,  33 
Warner,     Mrs.,    at     Sadler's    Wells 

Theatre,  i.  190 
Warsaw,  ii.  260-262 
Washington,  ii.  337 
Wat  Tyler,  ii.  137-139 
Waterloo :  how  the  battle  was  won.  i. 

135,  136 ;    and  war  correspondents, 

83 
Waterloo  hero  at  Cricklewood,  The, 

i-  33 

W.atts,  Mr.  G.  F. ,  ii.  305 

Weber,  a  water-colour  drawing  of,  i. 

32 
Webster,  Benjamin,  i.  96 
Weiss,  Mr.,  and  his  "shape,"  i.  128 
Welcome  Guest,  i.  314,  326,  335 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  and  Mrs.  A.  J. 
J.  Sala,  i.  38-40;  battle  of  Waterloo 
and  Eton,  135,  136  ;  preparations  for 
quelling  expected  chartist  riot,  183, 
254  :  funeral,  260 
West,  Mrs.  W.,  i.  62 
Westminster,  Marchioness  of,  i.  98 
Westminster,  Marquis  of,  i.  36 
Weston,  Mr.  Edward,  ii.  214 
White,  Sir  William,  ii.  279,  285,  286 
Whitecross  Street  Prison,  i.  127 
Whitehurst,  Mr.   Felix,    ii.    114,   117, 

154,  229 
Whittaker,  Mr.,  edUor  oi  Levant  Her- 
ald, ii.  290 
Wieland,  George,  i.  148 
Wigan,  Alfred,  and   the  author's  ju- 
venile tragedy,  i.  81,  95,  96  ;  in  the 
Corsicati  Brothers,  257  ;  ii.  133 
Wilberforce,  Bishop,  i.  378 
Wilde,  Mr.  Oscar,  i.  46 
Wilholmshohe,  ii.  46 
Wilks,  Mr.,  publisher  of  Chat,  i.  1S2 
"  Will  "  of  Peter  the  Great,  ii.  254 
William  I.,  Emperor,  at  the  Paris  Ex- 


INDEX 


S8l 


hibition  of  1867,  ii.  120  ;  his  event- 
ful career,  120,  121 

William  IV.  and  Nerot's  Hotel,  i.  53 

William  of  Orange,  the  ethics  of  his 
invasion  of  England,  ii.  194 

Williams,  Q.  C,  Montagu,  his  resem- 
blance to  Charles  II.,  i.  256;  au- 
thor's counsel  in  libel  suit,  ii.  199 

Williams,  Mr.  Otho,  ii.  338 

Williams,  Sir  William  Fenwick,  ii.  24 

Wills,  Mr.  W.  H. ,  managing  editor  of 
Household  Words,  i.  254,  307,  311 

Windsor  Castle,  kitchens  at,  i.  11  ; 
and  the  death  of  the  Prince  Consort, 

•■  374- 
Wingfield,  Lewis,  i.  360 ;  ii.  299,  300, 

413 

Winstanley,  Mrs.,  i.  190 

Wiseman,  Cardinal,  i.  215 

Wolff,  M.  Albert,  ii,  109 

Wolseley,  Lord,  ii.  24,  at  the  corona- 
tion of  Tsar  Alexander  III.,  328,  331 

Women  as  soldiers,  i.  296 

Wood,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  at  the  Princess's 
Theatre,  i.  129 

Woods,  Nicholas,  ii.  160 

Woolner,  Mr.  T.,  ii.  305 

"  Word  with  Punch,  A,"  i.  176 

Worth,  Battle  of,  ii-  i£6 


Wren,  Sir  Christopher,   and  Temple 

Bar,  ii.  250 
Wrench,  Mr.,  British  Vice-Consul  at 

Constantinople,  ii.  290 
Wright,  — ,  comedian  at  the  Princess's 

Theatre,  i.  129 
Wyatt,  Matthew  Digby,  i.  245 
Wynn,      — ,     professional     name      of 

Charles  Kerrison  Sala,  i.  153 

Yates,  Edmund,  i.  51,  75  ;  his  allusion 
to  private  theatricals  at  Charles 
Dickens's  London  residence,  92  ; 
author's  first  acquaintance  with  him. 
269,  277  ;  contributions  to  the  Illus- 
trated Times,  270  ;  edits  the  Comu 
Times.  277;  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  Train,  278,  284 ;  president  of 
the  "  Trainband  society,"  284,  307, 
315,  328,  329  ;  as  a  volunteer,  354  ; 
sub-editor  of  Temple  Bar,  359  ;  ii.  3, 
4,  122,  306 

Yates,    Frederick,    lessee    of  Adelphi 
;       Theatre,  i.  92 
Young,  Mr.  George  Frederick,  ii.  25 

Zangwill,  Mr. ,  his  descriptions  of  He- 
brew life  at  the  East  End,  i.  268 


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